Caidil gu math
by Wysawyg
Summary: A routine stop on the way to a different job may lead to deadly consequences for one of the boys when getting snowed in at a motel leads to something worse. What secrets lurk beneath the façade of a town with seemingly no supernatural history at all?
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Caidil gu math

**Author**: Wysawyg

**Summary**: A routine stop on the way to a different job may lead to deadly consequences for one of the boys when getting snowed in at a motel leads to something worse. What secrets lurk beneath the façade of a town with seemingly no supernatural history at all?

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the boys or any of the toys: those all belong to Kripke and the people at CW. However if I could bottle the buzz from a review, I'd be a millionaire (hint hint).

**Authors Notes:** Yes, this isn't a one-shot. Plot bunny struck me at work (as all plot bunnies tend to – luckily my boss doesn't know).

Timeline is set somewhere in season one before the boys have met up with their father again in Shadows.

This isn't a WIP, all chapters have already been written and at least partially edited. Chapters will be posted according to a complicated formula based on reviews for last chapter, potency of the cliffhanger and how evil I'm feeling.

Un-beta'd as before so apologies for any spelling/grammar/catastrophic plot errors. Anyway, without further ado…. Okay, maybe one more ado (ado!)…

* * *

"You think Red Bull is manufactured by a demonic cult?"

"Sure. If you wanted humans to willingly sacrifice themselves, what better way than marketing to students? Look at the positive side-effects, improved thinking, improved agility, growing wings. All physiological changes to make a superior human being. But then have too much, you get dizzy, too much nervous energy, leaving you prime target for possession. Add it all together, insta-hosts."

"And you want to test that theory by drinking all that?" Sam motioned towards the stacked crates of Red Bull.

"What else do we have to do in this backwater, boring as hell town? I mean, the EMF doesn't even twitch here." Dean tapped on the old walkman and then with a grin, turned it to point at his brother, "It twitches when I point it at you."

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

"Give me that." Sam used his superior reach to snatch the EMF out of his brother's hands and pointed it at himself. No twitch.

"Made ya look," Dean crowed in that sing-song voice Sam hated from childhood.

"Fuck you, Dean. Grow up." Sam leaned back on his bed and closed his eyes. It was only a few moments before he felt something plink off his forehead. For a brief, terrifying moment he had a flashback to Jessica's death but his mind rationally pointed out that whatever hit him was considerably harder than blood and the fact it had bounced off.

Sam opened his eyes just in time to see another shiny red projectile bounce off his forehead, "Dean." He growled, "Why are you hitting me with M&Ms?"

Dean paused with his arm still cocked, the small yellow sweet clenched in his fingers, "Thought you might be hungry?" He offered.

Sam growled low in his throat and then shifted himself up from the bed, pulling on his boots.

"Where ya going, Sammy?" Dean called over, "You have peeked out the window and seen the six foot of snow outside, right? 'cos I know, geek boys and sunlight don't mix."

"Out." Sam stated, hastily tying the laces on his second boot.

"Guessed that much." Dean said, popping the M&M into his mouth, "Why?"

"Because if I don't, I'll double this places' recent death count and it'll be a hell of a lot more violent than little old Mrs Finnegan dying surrounded by her family at the grand ol' age of ninety seven."

Dean snorted, "Seriously, could you imagine ever living in a town where the front page news is 'Women dies peacefully in her sleep'?"

Sam didn't look back as he opened the door out of the crappy motel room they were staying in, he didn't need to as he knew exactly what the expression on his brother's face would be as he said, "Yes Dean, I could."

* * *

By the time Sam returned to the motel room he had cooled down, both physically and mentally. He'd even bought a new packet of peanut M&Ms from the little store though he knew if his Dad found out then he would have been subject to Winchester lecture #412: Why supplying the enemy with ammunition is never sound tactics. The only problem was once he got into the room, there was no sign of Dean. 

He didn't think it was particularly surprising that Dean might have decided to get some air too except that this town had been built on the architectural concept of a straight line with the motel, store, bar, diner and church all along the same road, just about equidistant from each other. If Dean had gone out, Sam should've passed him on the way back.

Sam's instincts told him to head straight out the door despite the chill. Before his hand touched the handle he could hear his brother's taunting voice in the back of his mind 'What's the matter, Sammy? Can't bear to be left alone for a bit.' Sam withdrew his hand and forced himself to walk back to his bed.

He'd take a shower and change into some dry clothes and then if Dean still wasn't back, he'd go look Sam rationalised to himself as he grabbed one of the few clean towels and headed into the tiny bathroom.

Half an hour later Sam could feel his fingers and toes again and his clothes no longer clung damply to him however Dean still wasn't back. Sam felt the first rising note of panic as he tugged on his still-damp boots and warmest coat. Caution, or perhaps just years of being a Winchester, made him grab the first-aid kit and stow it in his duffel before he left the room.

Outside was still blustering snow and the footprints that Sam had made half an hour before were already mostly concealed beneath a fresh layer of snow. Sam lifted a hand to shield his eyes as he scanned the area for any people but there was no-one and nothing around.

The town they'd found themselves in was too small to have any system for heavy snow beyond just staying inside their houses so the path was still deep in white. It took Sam a long time to reach the store. The shopkeeper, a doughy man in his mid-forties, glanced up as soon as the bell above the door chimed, "Back already?" He asked, "Did you forget something?"

Sam shook his head as he brushed snow off his jacket, "No, just wondering if you've seen my brother?" Sam didn't expect a positive answer. Dean was far more likely to be at the bar but seeing as everywhere was in a line anyway, he figured it was worth a try.

The shopkeeper shook his head, "That man you were in with yesterday? Bought all that Red Bull stuff? Nope. Been no-one in today. Most folk are shut up inside or at the bar. If I do see him, I'll let him know you are looking for him."

It took Sam another fifteen minutes to reach the bar. Inside was almost empty, just the sunken-eyed barman and two grizzled gentlemen propping up the bar. Sam's heart sunk a little lower in his chest as he found no sign of Dean once again.

"What can I get you?" The barman monotoned, liver spotted hands resting lightly on the two pumps.

"N-nothing to drink," Sam shivered, "I was just wondering if you'd seen my brother in here today?"

"Seen no-one." The barman stated in a disinterested tone then paused, "Cold today." That was the closest that Sam had heard the man come to jovial conversation.

One of the men at the bar looking around at the stunted conversation, "Your brother that one with you here last night?" At Sam's nod, he continued, "Tell him he owes me a game of pool. Ain't been hustled like that since my nephew last came to visit."

Sam muttered something affirmative, the words bypassing his brain to go straight to his mouth. The diner was closed when he reached it, having finished lunch and waiting for the dinner crowd. The church, mostly a desperation move by Sam, was empty and somehow even colder than outside. That left Sam out of options as he trudged wearily back towards the moment.

Less than a minute away from the motel, he noticed an odd indentation in the snow drift. His heart, which had sunk almost to knee-level, lurched up into his mouth and he raced through the deep snow, trips and falls marring his progress. It took far too long in his estimation to reach the spot. Frantic brushing revealed a figure face down in the snow and he could barely bite back the cry from his lips as he turned it over, "Dean!"

A/N: Yes, a nice evil cliffhanger. Do you like so far? Dislike? Please let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**A/N:** Still in the establishing stage of the story here but I swear the action will pick up soon. Had to lay down a few clues to what's going on and all.

Thanks for all the reviews so far and hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

I tried to research treating hypothermia as best as I could but a lot of sites just say 'do x, y, z then get to hospital' and that's not really an option. I apologise for any glaring inaccuracies.

* * *

Sam found himself having to resort to tugging his brother through the snow as his attempts to carry led to plunging dives for himself and his brother head-first into the snow every other step, even though he was just retracing the rut that his run had caused. As soon as they were out of the deepest of the snow, Sam swung his brother up in a fireman's lift across his shoulders and moved as fast as his legs would carry him into the motel.

Once they were inside, he heaved his brother onto the bed and gulped air rapidly into his own burning lungs. Pressing his fingers to an ice-cold throat brought the sluggish beat of Dean's pulse and Sam felt himself relax a little. The gentle rise and fall of his chest reassured him that his brother was at least still breathing.

Sam peeled open Dean's eyes to check for concussion or anything that could explain why his brother was sprawled face-first in the snow and found himself staring into dull lucidity, "Dean? You awake?" There was no verbal answer but the eyes slid over towards the bedside cabinet. Sam followed them and saw four empty cans of Red Bull. "No wings yet? Snow Angels don't count." Dean just continued to stare at him, his gaze a disturbing mix of awareness and vacancy.

The thousand lectures that both boys had received from their Dad about first aid spun around in Sam's heads, the words, all sounding in his father's rough voice, colliding as Sam tried desperately to recall exactly what he needed to do. Wet clothes. Wet clothes are bad. Ergo Dean must be removed from wet clothes. Sam reached over his brother and gently tugged off the damn leather jacket, tossing it to the ground absently as he started on the buttons of the flannel shirt.

Dean's gaze met his, the eyes stating the message that the frost-frozen jaw couldn't manage, 'What the hell?'

"You need to get out of the clothes. They are making you colder and you really need to warm up." Sam thought about the thermometer but decided he really didn't want to know exactly how cold his brother was, the treatment would have to be the same either way as there was no cell phone coverage to ring for an ambulance and this pokey town didn't even have a doctor's clinic, let alone easy access to a hospital. Dean's skin was getting increasingly blue tinged as Sam started to yank at the buttons, his own cold fingers not doing well with the intricate procedure of undoing them. Once removed, the flannel shirt was tossed to the ground with the same disregard at the jacket and Sam grabbed hold of the t-shirt and lifted it roughly off his brother.

That done, Sam rested for a moment, grabbing the blanket from the bed and draping it over his brother's upper half. Dean's eyes once again met Sam's, 'Well, what now?' evident in them. Sam suppressed a wince and lowered his eyes to Dean's sopping wet jeans. Dean obviously noticed as his eyes took on their well-known 'Hell no!' expression.

Sam lowered trembling fingers to the button and fumbled to unfasten it, ignoring the pathetic shifts of his brother's tired body trying to fend him off. He tried to tug the jeans gently off but the wet fabric was stuck on his brother's legs as he had to be somewhat rough.

When he grabbed at the hem of Dean's boxer, Dean made his first noise so far even if it was just a 'Mmmmmph!' Sam just sent an apologetic glance to his brother, "They are drenched, Dean. Gotta come off." He grabbed a clear pair from the duffel, "Nothing that I haven't seen before." At Dean's startled 'werp?', Sam clarified, "From all the other times I've had to patch you up when you've been thrown into a wall or clawed by a werewolf or thrown into a wall or used as ceiling ornament by a Wendigo… or thrown into a wall." Sam tried to make it as fast as possible, tugging the boxers off with averted eyes and pulling the new pair up. Once that was done, he layered as many blankets on top of his brother as he could find in the room. Dean was still too pale and still not shivering which Sam knew was a very bad sign.

Best way to regain body heat was with body heat, Sam recalled, and if Dean had objected to the stripping, he wasn't about to like this. Sam pulled off his own sopping clothes down to his thankfully still dry boxers. He clambered into the bed with Dean, turning his brother onto his side to face him and barely suppressing a shiver as he pressed against his brother's freezing skin.

Dean shifted awkwardly, trying to pull away, but Sam placed his arms around his brother tugging him closer, "You need to get warm, Dean, and this is the best way. If your brain wasn't doing an ice-cube expression then you'd agree with me."

Sam let out a sigh of relief when Dean's shifting movements gradually became shivers, a sure sign that he was on the mend. Sam tugged the blankets closer around them, "Dean? You awake?" He asked, unable to feel any deliberate movements beyond the violent shivering, "Gotta stay awake."

"Fuh fing reh bur. Ner sluh." Came the response from Dean, barely verbal but enough to bring a smile to Sam's face, even if he had no fucking clue what his brother just said. Dean apparently realised this from the lack of response, "Reh buh. Wngs."

"Red Bull!" The words finally clicked into English in Sam's head, "Too much red bull, can't sleep. That's good. Maybe you should have more red bull but red bull is cold and you need warm stuff but not tea or coffee because they dehydrate." Sam was well-aware that he was rambling but couldn't bring himself to stop, "Hot chocolate. I got some sachets earlier. I'll make you one." Despite that, Sam couldn't bring himself to draw away from Dean's still shivering body for a long moment. When he did, it was cautious, padding down the blankets to let no cold air through. He couldn't help a smile to himself as Dean rolled himself into the warm spot where Sam had been.

The kettle provided in the room looked like it had seen better days, probably about 1904, but Sam didn't care as he jammed it under the bath tap, watching it begin to fill and ignoring the white swirls of lime scale detached from the element. Plugging it into the wall, Sam returned to where his brother was still shuddering under the mound of blankets. "Kettle's boiling." He said somewhat pointlessly, hating the silence that settled over the room, hating that he could hear every laboured breath his brother took. Sam perched his long frame on the edge of his own bed, "So, you gonna tell me what inspired your decision to become a human snowman?"

"Fuh ka you." The words were clearly enunciated from somewhere within the blankets, "You one hissy." Dean forced out from a jaw still clenched from cold.

"It wasn't a hissy fit." Sam protested, "I just needed some air. At least I told you where I was going."

"Need air." At least Dean seemed to be doing whole words now instead of barely coherent syllables. "Just walk. In snow. Too cold. Fell down." And that was apparently what Dean considered a good enough explanation.

Sam surged up to his feet once more and paced over to where the kettle was making a feeble attempt to fulfil its function. He fetched two of the least dusty mugs out of a small cupboard and emptied the contents of a sachet into each. "I see," He said, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard by his brother, "And that's a perfectly logical thing to do in which reality?"

Even though he couldn't see his brother's face, Sam knew he'd be scowling. "Didn' say logical. Jus' made sense." Apparently Dean had picked one of his favourite tactics: When quite clearly in the wrong, continue being stubborn about it. It was a technique that Sam was fairly sure Dean had learnt off their father and it also meant Sam knew he wouldn't be able to get any sense out of him at this point.

"Fine." Sam jabbed the kettle with his finger, trying to see if it was hot yet, it just felt mildly warm. Sam thumped across the floor, taking his anger out on innocent carpeting, until he reached Dean's duffel and starting hauling out some dry clothes. He grabbed the thickest pair of sweats he could find and two layers of t-shirts. He pulled down the edge of the blankets just enough to reveal Dean blinking owlishly up at him, green eyes too bright in his pale face. "You think you can dress yourself?"

Dean's gaze tracked to the fabric bundle in Sam's arms and then down to his blankets and then very slowly Dean shook his head before ducking it down, almost before Sam caught the shamed look.

"That's alright," Sam said rapidly and in a far too cheerful tone that wasn't fooling anyone. Sam pushed down the blankets far enough that he could pull the first t-shirt over Dean's head before pushing Dean's unresisting arms through the sleeves. The performance was repeated with the second t-shirt and a more complicated one as Sam pulled one of his warmer hoodies over his brother's too pliant body. Last but not least, Sam tugged the sweats up before piling the blankets back over his brother and turned back to where the kettle was making noises that indicating it was either boiling or possessed. Sam was tempted to grab some holy water just in case.

Finally with a click of the switch and a pzzzt, the kettle switched itself off. Sam poured the water into each mug and churned the liquid until all the powder was dissolved. He carried both mugs over to Dean's bedside table and then helped his brother sit up a little, fastened the blankets around him like a woollen tepee. "It's too hot to drink at the moment." Sam cupped his own mug in his hands, letting the heat permeate numb fingers.

Dean grasped his mug with both hands trembling so much that Sam was glad he hadn't filled it up too full and brought it up towards his mouth in an uncoordinated gesture. Carefully he tipped the mug enough that a small amount of the drink flowed into his mouth. Immediately Dean grimaced, "Burn tongue." He grouched, almost crashing the mug into the side of the table in his attempt to put it back in place.

Sam just looked unsympathetically at his brother, "I did warn you."

Dean just jutted out his tongue in response and tugged his blankets tighter around himself, still uncontrollably shivering.

Sam blew across the surface of his hot chocolate and took a small sip, the liquid still burnt against his lips, "So, are you going to tell me why you decided to go outside yet?"

Dean frowned and then shook his head and curled himself to face away from his brother.

Sam let out an aggravated sigh and slid off his bed once more, walking over to the other side of Dean's bed to face him, "No sleeping, Dean. Not 'til you stop shivering." Dean's hazel eyes briefly met Sam's own before his brother rolled himself back to the other side. "I mean it, Dean." Sam said, doing his best impression of the John Winchester full-marine-mode voice that Dean was almost conditioned to respond to.

Dean's body rolled over and hazel eyes met his once more before Dean nodded and pulled himself up again, barely suppressing a wince at his still cold body objected to the movement.

Sam looked reassured and moved back to sit on the bed. The day's events were already catching up with him but he swore that he wouldn't sleep, he would just lie down on the bed for a moment, just enough to get comfortable. Maybe he'd cover himself up with the blankets, just because it was cold. He had to keep an eye on Dean, hell most of the time he needed to keep two eyes on Dean and even then it was usually just in time to see his brother tossed into the wall. Sam's eyes slid closed on their own accord and Sam brought them back open, focusing blearily on the opposite wall. When they slid closed for the second time, Sam felt himself begin to fade away into sleep, 'Just for a minute' His mind promised him.

A/N: The end… Just kidding. There's still a lot more to come! Please let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**Authors Notes:** Big thanks to all the reviewers from the last chapter. Sorry I haven't replied to y'all. I got struck down by the horrible Cold Of Doom tm this weekend (just in time that I can't take any sick days from work) and figured you'd prefer a new edited chapter rather than a reply. I will get around to replying to them after some point in the future as long as my sieve-resembling brain remembers.

Hope you all enjoy this chapter, the pace should pick up a bit from here. I did try to post this up yesterday but the evil upload wouldn't let me!.

* * *

Sam woke up a few hours later to the sound of footsteps in the room. He flipped over onto his back and blinked a couple of times until his night vision cleared, cursing himself for having fallen asleep. He could just make out a shape at the door, fumbling with the lock. A side glance to his brother's empty bed revealed its identity, "Dean? What are you doing?" Sam asked, shifting the blanket off himself to stand up. 

"Out." came the response, said in a dull tone that didn't seem much like Dean's own as his hands continued to try and work the door.

"You are not going out." Sam protested, walking over to put himself in position between the door and his brother. He raised a hand up to the older man's forehead, checking for fever but finding only still cool flesh, "Come on, back to bed."

"Out." Dean repeated, his eyes slightly glassy as he couldn't seem to process this new obstacle in his way.

"Not out." Sam corrected, taking hold of his brother's arms and steering him back towards his bed like an uncooperative child. He pushed Dean down onto the bed and manipulated limbs like one of his old toys until Dean was safely back under the pile of blankets, "Bed. Sleep." Sam commanded before tucking himself into his own bed, rolling onto his side so he was facing Dean.

Sam's eyes were just beginning to close again when he heard the soft thump of blankets hitting the ground and the soft pad of footsteps. He pushed himself out of bed and watched with a sigh as Dean made his way back towards the door, "Of all the times you had to pick to start sleep-walking!" He grasped his brother's arms and tried to turn him. Dean seemed to have wised to the move this time as he used his own body weight to spin the pair in a full circle so Dean was facing the door once more and he tugged himself out of the grip and walked to the door.

"Out." Dean repeated and the word was really beginning to creep Sam out. Dean reached towards the latch on the door, pushing it one way and then the other in an attempt to work out how it worked.

Sam pushed his body between his brother and the door once more, "Not out." He said, knowing he could usually out-stubborn his brother, "Bed. Warm."

"Out." Dean said once more, trying to reach around Sam for the door.

Sam shook his head and gripped his brother's arms tightly. He had to shift his grip when Dean abruptly sagged, supported only by Sam's arms rapidly looped under his shoulders. "Dean?" Green-speckled hazel eyes snapped up to meet Sam's, bright and wary once more. "Welcome back to the waking world."

"Wasn't asleep." Dean's tone was a little slurred but at least it was back to being the unmistakeable Dean.

"Really? Do you often sleep walk while wide awake?" Sam teased, lifting his brother up a little and slinging his arm around Sam's shoulders to support his weight as the pair staggered towards the bed.

"Wasn't sleep walking."

"What were you doing then?" Sam asked as he lowered Dean down to sit on the bed.

"Out." It wasn't said with the blind determination of earlier but with an emotion that chilled Sam far more from his brother: helplessness.

Sam distracted himself by packing the blankets around his brother once more before perching on the side of the bed, determined to block any further escape attempts. He noted that the hot chocolate mug was now empty, unlike Sam's own which was congealing cold at his bedside, "What was that about, Dean?" Sam demanded.

Dean pulled the blankets half-over his face, still looking too pale and younger than Sam had seen him look before, "I… Out?" Dean said, haplessly, "It just made sense. Had to go out."

Sam frowned, "Something was calling you?" He asked, glancing to the door and noting that he hadn't remembered to put down the salt lines earlier.

Dean shook his head, "Not being called." He tilted his head back in frustration against the hard wooden head of the bed, "It's just like it made total sense to go outside. And yes, I know there is a load of snow out there."

Sam felt guilty for the stab of relief that his brother was at least speaking in full sentences, "I know hypothermia is supposed to cause mental impairment but I didn't think it'd be anything like that."

Dean scowled at his brother, "I'm not impaired, geek boy."

"Well whatever is happening, it seems to impair your thinking. At least you couldn't figure out the whole door opening procedure."

Dean shook his head, "It was impaired because, well I'm not impaired but I still can't think straight. When I can think clearly.." He left it hanging.

"Shit." Sam concurred, "How the hell can I Dean-proof a door?"

"Stick a Spice Girls poster on it?" The joke was there but the humour was lacking.

"I could tie you to the bed."

"Kinky as that sounds, Sammy, You haven't been able to tie a knot that I can't undo since you were eight and decided you wanted to be a cub scout."

Sam couldn't help but smile at the reminder. He wondered what Dean'd say if he knew somewhere in storage at Stanford was a faded, but lovingly tended, blanket sewn with all the Demon Scout badges, "I could barricade the door."

"Unless you use your super-Sammy powers, there's not much you can push in front of the door that I can't push away from the door." Dean pointed out, "Not at the moment obviously but when I'm better."

Sam stood up off the bed and paced a little, twisting his feet into the carpet as if it offended him, "You think you are going to do that again?" He stalked over to the EMF and flicked it on, swinging it around the room, "Nothing!"

"It didn't feel supernatural." Dean said, ignoring the look his brother gave him, "I mean, it didn't feel like something was affecting me. It felt like something I wanted to do." As Sam continued to look disbelieving at his brother, Dean threw up his arms, "Look, I've been a hunter long enough to have a sense about supernatural things and whatever this was, wasn't."

"Unless you've always had a fetish to be the abominable yeti, I'm going to write this off as something natural for now." Sam placed the EMF down and continued to pace, "I don't think I've seen anything like this in Dad's journal. Not that we know much about what this is. Could be a siren, they lure men to their deaths."

Dean snorted, "Didn't hear no singing, Sammy. Plus sirens tend to be found near water. I don't think a whole heap of snow counts."

Sam nodded, "It was a long shot. What happened after I left yesterday?"

"I cursed you a lot." Dean said, "Thought about putting itching powder in your boxers again but I think I ran out of powder last time I did that then I walked out into the snow. I remember getting tired and falling and then I just lay there, I couldn't get up."

"And when you walked out it was the same as just now. It just seemed like the right thing to be doing?" Sam questioned.

Dean just nodded, "Exactly."

"Why aren't you more worried about this? Something is trying to kill you!" Sam exclaimed, turning about face to stalk once more towards his brother.

Dean just shrugged, "I dunno. It just doesn't seem like the most well-thought attacks."

"It's already almost killed you once." Sam said sharply, "And if I hadn't woken up when I did…"

"But you did," Dean pointed out, "And given how we grew up, you were always likely to wake up as soon as you heard anything moving about in the room which makes it very unlikely that this thing's plan would succeed, not that we know if it's a thing. It might just be that I'm finally going crazy. There is only so long you can walk around in the dark killing monsters before you begin to lose your mind. All that look into the abyss and the abyss looking into you stuff"

Sam's dark gaze pinned his brother, "That is not funny." He bit out the words.

"You're just jealous 'cos I'm gonna be the randy old guy in the nursing home that all the women protest over." Dean said, tossing his folded hands behind his head and smiling up at the ceiling.

One of the M&Ms that Dean had lobbed earlier bounced off his forehead and Sam allowed himself a smirk, even as he picked up another M&M for another volley.

"Hey, sick person here." Dean protested.

"If you are well enough to contemplate a future as a randy old person, you are well enough to put up with a little M&M target practice." Sam did guiltily drop the remaining projectile and walked back to perch on his brother's bed, "So, how are you feeling?"

"No chick-flick moments." Dean snapped off.

Sam scowled, "I meant physically!"

"Like I fell head-first into a snow drift." Dean replied in his usual casual tone, "I'll be fine in a bit." He shot a hopeful look towards his brother, "I'd get even better if I had some coffee."

Sam shook his head, "No coffee. It dehydrates. You know better! Dad drilled you about hypothermia on cold hunts as much as he did me."

Dean snorted, "I'm still not sure that was hypothermia. Just Sammy over-reacting."

Sam was tempted to take the empty mug of hot chocolate and smack his brother repeatedly over the head to try and knock some sense into him, "It was hypothermia. Do you want me to list the symptoms?" Sam held up fingers, "You were practically blue. You weren't shivering but you started once we warmed you up. Your skin was ice cold. You were unconscious."

"No, I wasn't." Dean protested. "I was awake."

Sam thought back, his brother's eyes had been lucid once he'd opened them. He decided to let that one slide… almost, "You were on the verge of being unconscious." Sam uncurled another finger.

Dean interrupted, "Fine, fine. It was probably hypothermia. It's not like I haven't had it before. You remember that ghoul we were hunting? You'd left your hat in the car again so I let you borrow mine."

Sam remembered the hour long lecture from his father and watching Dean looking frail on the bed with violent shivers just a hair's breadth from convulsions. Every since then, Sam had checked supplies religiously before they went out on a hunt to make sure he didn't leave anything behind. "Yeah," Sam finally croaked out, clearing his throat and then heading over to the kitchenette to pour himself a glass of water, pouring his brother once at the same time. "Drink." He ordered.

"Yes, sir," Dean's tone was mocking rather than the habitual obedience he gave to his father. Still he took the glass that Sam held out and sipped slowly at it. "How long is this snow supposed to last anyway?"

Sam shrugged, "I haven't checked any weather sites today yet. Last time I got the weather report off the TV it said a couple of days. As soon as the road is clear, we're getting the hell out of here." Sam stated.

"What happened to this being your perfect little retirement village from the nasty world of monsters?" Dean threw Sam's earlier comment back at him.

Sam barely suppressed a sigh as he sunk onto his bed, feeling the springs sag beneath him, "I guess it's not so picture perfect after all." Sam picked up the EMF and swung it around once more, "I'm leaving this thing on, hopefully it'll alert us if something odd happens."

"Don't drain the batteries." Dean said, putting his empty glass of water on the bedside, "I don't have any spares."

"We can go back to the store tomorrow, I'm not risking something coming in here." San glanced to the door and then stood and pulled the ever-present canister of salt from his duffel and left a trail at the doors and windows, "Would rather have some stronger protective charms but I don't have any ingredients. Will see what we can do when the store opens tomorrow morning." Sam padded over to his bed, limbs seeming heavier and heavier as he got closer, "Get some sleep. I'll wake you up in the morning." Was the last thing he said before sinking into relaxing sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter 1**

**A/N: **Another slightly slow chapter, I promise things will begin to pick up soon. I have a few pacing issues with long fics to work out but it's all good practice.

* * *

Sam woke up to the gentle tapping noise of fingers on the keyboard. He pulled himself to a sitting position and glanced over to Dean's bed. Dean was sitting up, blankets pooled around him and most of his normal colour returned. His skin was still a few shades paler than it should've been though and there were shadows beneath hazel eyes. 

"Dean?" Sam asked groggily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he swivelled sideways, lanky legs dangling off the side of the bed.

Dean glanced over and gave his brother a smile, "Morning, sleepy. Just trying to do some research on this place. I googled it but there were zero hits. Well, there was a load of hits but it turned out to be the place in Ireland that the name likely came from. Bunch of websites 'bout birds and not the fun naked kind."

"How long've you been up?" Sam had never picked up his father's habit of shifting straight from asleep to wide-awake unless he felt someone was in danger. "Any hot water left?"

"Haven't showered yet." Dean replied and shifted his eyes to the laptop screen, intently avoiding the former question, "The snow is beginning to clear. Still too heavy on the roads to get out of here but it should be easier to walk into town. We should probably go to the graveyard and look for any recent graves, ones that the local paper might not have reported."

"You think this lure thing has happened before?"

"Of course," Dean said, looking over at Sam with an 'isn't it obvious?' expression, "I mean, it's unlikely something lay dormant and then randomly decided to attack when two hunters were in town unless we got a spook with a death wish." Dean frowned, "Can a spook have a death wish? Exorcism wish is too much of a mouthful. Salt 'n' Burn wish?"

Sam glanced over to his brother who was talking rapidly, even for him, "How are you feeling?"

Dean rolled his eyes, "Not this again. I feel fine, Sammy, and I'm planning on staying that way. For all we know, it really was just my brains being a bit addled from the deep freeze or some Frosty the Siren thing that has now realised it can't get a Winchester that easy and will give up."

"Yes, because most spirits give it a couple of goes and then decide it's too tough and just slink quietly into the great beyond." Sarcasm dripped from every syllable of Sam's sentence.

"What's to say they don't?" Dean protested, "I mean, we only meet the angry ones, the ones who've been loitering around, racking up the death count. Maybe there's loads of other stuff out there that gives the whole evil afterlife thing a try then decides it's too much work. It's not like there aren't loads of unsolved deaths out there. Remember that freaky death in Minnesota? We spent two months there before Dad decided it was just a really unusual natural death. It could've been something supernatural that decided to move on on its own."

"Did you ever mention this theory to Dad?"

"Are you kidding?" Dean scoffed, pecking idly away at the keyboard without checking his screen, "Dad'd likely chuck a load of holy water over me, convinced I'd have to be possessed to be that stupid."

"There's an idea," Sam said, pretending to reach towards his duffel. Dean grabbed a pillow and lobbed it in a perfect hit on his brother's head, "I'm gonna go shower." Sam ambled towards the bathroom, "If I'm feeling nice, I'll leave you some hot water."

Sam spent longer in the shower than he strictly needed to despite the vague guilt over using all the hot water. Truth be told, he hated being in that room. Dean looked back to normal apart from the obvious lack of sleep and a paler cast to his skin but there was just something that seemed off about him. Dean had always taken the hunt seriously, sure, he made jokes, had fun but when it came down to it, it was his absolute focus. Now, Dean didn't seem to particularly care about getting this thing, even when it had tried to kill him twice.

When Sam stepped out of the bathroom, Dean was in exactly the same position that he had been sitting when Sam left. Sam padded over and pulled on warm clothes. He glanced over a t-shirt clad shoulder to look at Dean, "You getting in the shower?"

"Any hot water left?" Dean mumbled but Sam was glad to see him pulling himself out of the blankets and ambling towards the bathroom, moving a little crookedly.

"Yeah, some. You alright? Didn't fall on a rock in that snow?"

"No, I think it's all that shivering. I think I strained something." Dean walked through and nudged the door shut with his heel, "No peeking."

Sam could've sworn that the water was only running for two minutes before Dean re-emerged, his short hair still sending droplets of water dribbling over his face and down his neck. Dean somewhat listlessly pawed into his clothes and then dropped to a seat on the edge of a bed. "So, we off?" He asked.

"Are you sure that you are up for a walk into town?" Sam asked, looking concerned over his wobbling path from the bathroom door to the bed.

"Yes, Mom." Dean said, "Want me to do a handstand to prove it?"

Sam was briefly tempted to take his brother up on the offer except that he had a feeling his brother trying to do a handstand would lead to his brother crashing headfirst into a table or a bedside cabinet or, possibly at this point, a window. "That's alright. You are right that the graveyard is probably the best place to start. Luckily no digging up for once."

The walk to the graveyard was done in silence and slower than Sam would have liked. His long legs felt cramped from having to slow for Dean's staggering step. By the time they reached the graveyard, Sam was sure that he'd made the wrong decision in not tying his brother to the bed and leaving him there.

"Gonna be difficult to spot any fresh graves under all this snow," Dean observed as they walked through the wrought iron gates into the graveyard. It was small, the white snow marred by the peeking tops of the graves at irregular intervals, "Might have to re-think that whole 'no digging' thing."

Sam scowled even though he knew his brother was right, "We can start with the easy ones. Just brush the snow off a few graves and look." Sam peeked around, "There's a few where the snow has been shovelled off, look. Those are the ones likely to be recent, I mean, if they still have family around to do that."

"Logic boy strikes again," Dean said, his tone somehow mocking and complementing at the same time, "You take left, I'll take the right." Dean didn't even bother waiting for an acknowledgment before he headed off to the right, his bow-legged walk even more pronounced as he waded through the snow.

Sam resisted the temptation to stomp after his brother and instead made his way to the first of the uncovered graves. It turned out to be that of the old lady whose peaceful death had made the front page of the local paper. He considered it very unlikely that Eleanor Finnegan, loving wife and mother, was going to be luring young men to their death in the snow so he moved onto the next uncovered grave.

The next grave was similarly unhelpful, just a man who had died of old age almost twenty years ago. Sam supposed some family had been out to clear the grave, the town seemed one of the tight knit groups with generations all either living under the same roof or just a few doors down.

The third grave brought a catch to Sam's throat as he looked down at it. The grave itself was unprepossessing, just simple worn granite with the words engraved upon it in the same sort of style as was usually found in old church manuscripts. A name, a pair of dates for birth and death: the latter near the end of World War Two. What caught Sam's attention was that a brass circle occupied the lower half of the stone: set perfectly flat to the stone with celtic knots engraved around it, the raised edge was shone to glossy smooth while the lower edge was hatched and dark. Within the circle were words in a language Sam thought was Gaelic, written much simpler than the name and in clipped lines that resembled a poem. Sam swung around his duffel and grabbed a sheet of paper, pressing it to the grave and making a quick rubbing with the stick of charcoal.

Once he was satisfied that he had a good copy of the gravestone, he stood up and peered around the expanse of white snow, "Dean?" He called, "Dean!"

"Whaat?" Dean drawled from far to Sam's right and straining his eyes, Sam could just make out of the dark blonde spikes of his brother's hair peeking from the top of the fluffy snow. Dean must've been crouching though as they were barely visible.

"I found something here. Coming over to you." Sam began to wade through the snow.

"Why are you coming to see me if you've found something?" Dean asked, appearing more clearly ahead of Sam as he stood.

'Because you are the one more likely to fall flat on your face in the snow' was what Sam didn't dare say, instead he came up with a slightly weak, "I thought you found something too. You were crouching."

"Whatever. Was just reading the gravestone. Nothing interesting. Dead old person." Sam noted that Dean still appeared to be on his first grave when Sam had already made it around to three.

"Okay, take a look at this." Sam held out the hastily done rubbing, careful not to smudge the charcoal.

Dean squinted over the page, "Gaelic on an Irish person's grave? Hold the front page, Sammy, we've got this one all wrapped up."

Sam huffed out his frustration in a whuff of frosted breath, "I don't know much Gaelic but I do recognise a few words." Sam gestured, careful not to touch the paper and smudge the still fresh charcoal, "That one is sleep, I think, and that one is guardian."

Dean shook his head at his brother, "Again. Dead person's grave. A guy in the eternal sleep with the angelic guardian or some similar homily." Dean just rolled his eyes, "Seriously Sammy, did you expect the answer all scribbled out on a grave? 'Here lies Ciaran Finnegan, he died a tragic death in the war and will now come back to haunt a town and drag incredibly handsome men to their death in the snow. By the way, he can be vanquished with a six pack of a Budweiser and reciting a Metallica song backwards.'"

Sam shot his brother a disgusted look, "He's the youngest dead person in this graveyard so far. Everyone else appears to have died of old age, not exactly likely to bring about a bunch of vengeful spirits."

"Yeah, he died young." Dean agreed then jabbed a finger towards the date of death and Sam wondered whether he'd deliberately smudged it, "In 1940. It's hardly likely that this ghost loitered around for sixty six years and then decided 'You know what? Maybe killing would be fun'"

Sam was getting incredibly tired of being mocked by his brother, even though he recognised most of the irritability actually stemmed from Dean's annoyance at his own illness, "Fine. Found anything on the graves you checked?" Sam couldn't help the mocking plural.

Dean appeared to be too stubborn to admit his tiredness as he just said, "Lots of dead old people. Guess your guy is the closest lead." Dean wavered slightly as he stood and Sam resisted the urge to offer a shoulder in support, "We should come back here tonight once it's a bit darker. It's not like we can make a quick getaway if someone spots us digging up a grave in the middle of the night. Old fashioned salt and crispy and then we can all get a good night's sleep."

A/N: And then they dig up the body, salt and burn it and everything is fine, the end… Oh wait, that's not how it goes. You want to know what happens, press the pretty purple button. Every review feeds the hamsters running around in little wheels that power my computer.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**A/N:** Hopefully the events in this chapter make up for the slightly slow start.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Got some seriously stuffed hamsters who are on a bit of a sugar rush too! Extra thanks to InSecret who let me know I had anonymous reviewing disabled... which I didn't realise. That has now been corrected. I thought everyone was being too positive. ;) This chapter posted extra fast as a thanks though alerts and stuff appear to be down at the moment.

* * *

"Well, this sucks." Dean announced as the brothers stared into the coffin that they'd spent a good few hours digging up. Or rather Sam had dug up and Dean had made the occasional effort before petering into a coughing fit and having to rest, crouched in the snow. It was a very plain coffin, made from some mid-brown wood with simple brass fixings. It was also undeniably empty. "So what are we looking at here? Vampire? Zombie?" 

Sam peered at the open lid of the coffin, "No scratch marks on the underside. At a guess, I'd say there was never anything in this coffin." Sam skimmed a hand over the coffin bottom, "No residue of clothing or blood or anything that indicates there was a body."

Dean's eyes almost glowed, "Excellent." At Sam's startled look, the shorter hunter continued, "No body means someone buried an empty coffin. Why bury an empty coffin unless you've got something to hide? I was beginning to think this place had no dark secrets and come on, how likely is that ever to happen?"

"I'm sure there are plenty of small towns with no dark secrets."

"Really? Name one." Dean challenged.

Sam racked his brains, running through the numerous places that they'd stayed in the past. Dean shot him a look of triumph at his silences. Sam just scowled in response, "Well, seeing as our main criteria for staying in a place is that it has supernatural things for us to hunt, we're probably not the best judges!"

"Whatever, Sammy." Sam swore Dean took pleasure in drawing out the second syllable of that damn name, "All I'm saying is I'm glad this place isn't running beyond our normal expectations. So, where do we starting on finding whichever freak resurrected this Ciaran guy from the dead? This place looks way too small to have its own library and we're kinda low on transport options."

"There's supposed to be a local history display in the church," Sam said thoughtfully, "I was going to check it out earlier today."

"Ah, so you were suspicious that something was going on."

Sam looked a little abashed, "No, I was just curious."

"Geek boy," Dean smirked, "Fine. Let's go poke around the church."

* * *

The church was empty but well-maintained, the scent of incense permeating the air and the stone floor swept clear. It was dark but ably lit in parts by candles. Sam grabbed one of the candles from the holder and made his way towards the display, glancing briefly back to see if Dean was following. He wasn't, instead Sam could see his brother slumped in one of the pews, trying to cough silently into his hand. Sam was tempted to march over there but he knew his brother would just suppress the coughing and that wasn't what he needed. 

It took Sam about an hour to make his way from one side of the display to the other. He had hoped that Dean might be sleeping by the time that Sam returned to him but instead his brother was hunched in the same position, ribs heaving with stifled coughs. Dean looked up as Sam walked over, his eyes seeming a little glassy at first but clearing a little as he focused, "Find anything interesting?"

"Not much. Lots of fetes and old time photos. You know what's weird though? There's absolutely nothing weird about this place."

"Yeah, that fits the typical definition of weird." Dean snarked.

Sam continued as if his brother hadn't spoken, "No unexplained deaths, no reported hauntings, no ghost myths, no urban myths, nothing." Sam eased himself into a pew next to his brother, Sam had always been more religious than his family but that didn't mean that he ever found pews comfortable, especially once his legs sprouted enough that his knees constantly bumped against the hard wooden back of the pew in front.

"So everything supernatural took one look at this place and booked a ticket to Disneyland instead? Apart from us. Anything else interesting?"

"Not really. This place was founded about eighty years ago by a couple of Irish immigrants, brothers who were looking to escape the increased religious tensions of their homeland after World War One. Both married local girls, raised families etc."

"Wait, this place was founded by the Irish and it has no freaking supernatural beasties at all? You'd think they could've brought something over. I've always wanted to hunt me a leprechaun."

Sam eyed his brother, "You've studied Irish folklore?"

"Of course," Dean said, "Do you realise just how many naked women there are? Selkies, get the skin, naked! Swan girls, get the feather coat, naked! Fairies, dancing in mushroom rings, naked! I tried to persuade Dad to organise a trip over there."

"Upstairs brain, Dean." Sam chided, "Anyway, it solves the empty grave mystery. One of the founding brothers is the same Ciaran Finnegan whose grave we just dug up. The history says that his body was never recovered from where it fell in France and his brother buried an empty coffin in his brother's memory. No zombies."

Dean pouted, "Damn, just when I thought things might be interesting. Kinda wish you'd mentioned this display before we spent a few hours digging up an empty grave. So where does that leave us?"

"I still don't like this engraving. I want to have a look through Dad's journal, see if he made any note of Celtic curses. Maybe one brother swore vengeance on something after his little brother's death."

Dean rolled his eyes, "Fine. So when did the older brother die?"

"History doesn't say. There were just an introductory paragraph about the founding of this place then the rest of it rambled on about the happy people who live there."

"You think he might still be alive?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, "It's not likely, he'd be over a hundred. Probably just means that he died peacefully in his sleep and it wasn't worth noting on the local history board."

"We could look for his grave." Dean said eagerly.

Sam rolled his eyes, "I think you are beginning to enjoy salting and burning a little too much. You know that Dad used to worry you'd be a pyromaniac. As I recall, that's when he gave you your first lighter." Sam scratched his head, "Either way I didn't see any grave for Padraig Finnegan, there was one for an Eleanor Finnegan."

"Maybe she was Ciaran Finnegan's wife and now that she's dead, her husband's spirit is seeking revenge on everyone that his wife might've thought was hot." Dean hypothesised.

"That's an idea," Sam said thoughtfully, "Apart from the last bit." He added before Dean's grin would widen, "If they did have families then surely some of the descendants would know the story better."

"Look under the phone book for Finnegan then?"

"I want to translate this first." Sam gestured to the paper now tucked in a pocket, "We should probably at least have an idea of what is going on before we start talking to the locals."

"Back to the batcave then?" Dean levered himself to a standing position and Sam bit his lip when he could see just how much that simple action was tiring his brother. Sam still had some sleeping pills left over from one of their recent hunts gone wrong and Sam resolved to grind them up into the next form of food served to his brother, just to give his brother a chance at recuperation.

* * *

Unfortunately Sam's cunning plan hit a flaw when his brother refused to eat anything, citing a lack of appetite. Sam had successfully spiked a bowl of spaghetti, a twinkie and even some burnt pancakes but his brother just shook his head and carried on wiping down the guns, breaking the rhythm occasionally to pop a peanut M&M into his mouth. For the life of Sam, he couldn't figure out how to spike those! 

Finally Sam gave up and flumped backwards on his own bed, tugging the laptop onto his legs and tapping away for Gaelic translations in the search engine. There didn't seem to be any instant translators for a block of text apart from one but Sam was fairly sure that the poem on the grave is unlikely to contain any reference to dachshunds or purple jasmines so Sam strongly doubted its validity. Instead Sam worked word by word through one of the dictionary pages until he had translated about a quarter of the text on the grave: it was a rough translation at best, finding the closest matching word and scribbling it down where it seemed to fit.

"Huh." Sam said.

"What?" Dean said, putting the gun down on the bed and twisting himself sideways to face his little brother.

"That inscription on the grave, it seems to fit the pattern of a spell."

"Excellent," Dean said.

"Of protection."

"What?" Dean said, "Against what?"

"By the sounds of it, against everything." Sam replied.

"Explains why this place is such a supernatural dead-zone. But if it's a protection spell then why is it attacking me? You are the psychic freak-boy."

"Maybe," Sam concurred, "But I'm not exactly likely to vision someone to death. You are the dangerous one."

"Dangerous, eh? I like that." Dean smirked before the smirk fell off his face, "Would like it better if it wasn't trying to kill me. So it's solution three: get the hell out of dodge. Unless you can find some to alter this protecting thingy not to whammy me?" There was a hopeful note in Dean's voice.

"It's an ancient Celtic spell, likely backed up by some serious druidic magic and I've got barely a quarter of it translated to any sense!" Sam exclaimed.

"So, that's a no?" Dean asked. "So how does this protection thingy work?"

Sam read over the rough translation he'd created again, "It seems to call upon the, I think this word is guardian but I've found at least three translations of it so far and one of them is dragon but I think guardian makes the most sense. Anyway, it calls upon the 'guardian' to protect all kith and kin from harm. I couldn't find a lot of the words in the dictionary so I can't be sure of the exact meaning."

"Surely there must've been some threat for them to come up with this protection thing. It must be pretty powerful if it got me." For one, there didn't seem to be the cocky note in his brother's voice but rather the honest truth.

"At least we have a date for when the protection spell was cast." At his brother's confused look, Sam rolled his eyes, "It was engraved on the brother's grave which means it must have been cast at some point after the brother's death."

"So maybe the brother's death wasn't as natural as all that. Well, as natural as being slaughtered on the battlefield can be." Dean rubbed his hands together, his face lit with animation for the first time since Sam had found him in that damnable snow drift, "There's all sorts of things it could be. There's one unseelie thing called Yallery Brown who brings chaos to anyone foolish enough to thank him."

"I'll just be glad if we don't run into a banshee."

"Bah, Banshees have got a bad rap. They are actually protector spirits of a family, warning them of oncoming death. They don't actually kill anyone."

Sam just gave his brother a look, "I'll take your word on that." Sam tapped a few more inquiries into a different search engine and glanced over the results, "Weather forecast says that the snow should be clear by tomorrow so we can get out of here. I guess I'll just have to stand guard so you don't go sleep-walking tonight." Sam didn't miss the guilt that flickered over Dean's face at his words and brown eyes narrowed, "What?"

"I told you before, Sammy, I'm not sleep-walking. Since we first drove into this place," Dean paused and awkwardly shrugged his shoulders, "I haven't been able to sleep."

A/N: Dum-de-dum. insert dramatic roll of music . Anyone see that coming? Anyone who google translated the title could have guessed though I do have to confess that the title is Scottish Gaelic whereas the story is based on Irish characters. Speaking not a word of Gaelic myself, I have no idea what the differences would be. I just liked the sound of the title and thought it fit!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimers and notes are in chapter 1**

**A/N:** Another slightly slow chapter. I will probably post the next chapter tomorrow to make up for it. Hopefully alerts will come back soon, posting anyway.

Don't forget that every time you review, a fairy gets its wings… and Dean Winchester shoots its sparkly ass back down to the ground!

* * *

'Well, there goes that plan.' Sam thought to himself in the silent moments that stretched after his brother's announcement. He could see Dean looking on edge, his teeth biting into his lower lip in an uncharacteristic show of nervousness. Sam's conscience told him to put Dean out of his misery: Sam found it hard to be that annoyed with his brother when this was just another secret on top of the already towering pile, "How long have you known something was wrong?" Sam asked. 

"Not long," Dean said quickly and defensively, "I mean, the first night with the cold and all, I just figured I didn't sleep because of the red bull then the energy high from that wore off and I was so tired. Sitting in the church with the drowsy odour of the incense, I was sure I was just going to fall asleep. I felt myself begin to fall, got to that point where you are almost asleep, standing on the precipice, arms windmilling and I just froze there. I couldn't take the final step."

Sam realised the reason he couldn't be angry at Dean was that he was too busy being angry at himself. He should have realised, all the signs were there. The fact that Dean hadn't been unconscious during the hypothermia despite all the other advanced symptoms. The fact that Dean had been awake before him tapping away at the laptop, Dean was rarely a morning person unless it was staying awake to the early hours of. "We'll drive out of here tomorrow," Sam stated decisively, "And then if you can't sleep then, we'll… Well, we'll figure out something then."

"Keen plan," Dean mocked, "But we're still facing the issue of how to stop me wandering off in the middle of the night, not to mention the issue of the poor folks here that might be a bit stuffed if we leave this weird thing behind."

Sam's previous plan had involved tying his brother to the bed as soon as he fell asleep. Unfortunately Dean's revelation had put pay to that, "I still thinking tying you up is the best solution."

Dean just shook his head, "Like I mentioned before, no knots I can't undo."

"With duct tape." Sam continued.

Dean scowled, "No way, that just hurts like hell."

"Would you rather suffer a little pain or turn yourself from a snow angel into the genuine article?" Sam asked, tilting his eyebrow up.

"You are the boy genius. Surely there's got to be another way." It was as close to pleading as Dean ever got and Sam had to look away instead of meeting his brother's eyes, racking his brain for anything else.

"I've got it!" Sam said with a click of his fingers, "Stand up." He directed his brother.

Dean stared a little dazed at him and then eased himself off the bed he'd been resting on, standing a little wonkily in front of his brother, "Now what?"

"You remember when Dad told you to take me for target practice?" Sam prompted.

Dean frowned a little, searching back through his memory, "Oh yeah. With the rifle." Sam scowled at the smirk that appeared.

"Yes, the rifle that you didn't warn me about the recoil on."

"I wasn't expecting you to be such a wuss about it."

"It nearly broke my collarbone!" Sam protested, rubbing absently at the long healed spot, "Hurt to move for a month."

"If your grand plan is to shoot me, Sammy, let me just say: No. No, no, no, no, no. It hurt enough the last time and you will need me at some point in this hunt, even if it's just bait."

"As tempting as it might be when I have a good excuse, that is not the plan." Sam rubbed his hands together, the little brother part of him enjoying the worried anticipation of his brother's face, "Jog on the spot."

"What?" Dean asked, his clipped voice jumping up to a yell.

"Jog on the spot," Sam repeated, "You can't run away in the dark if you are too exhausted to move."

Dean arched a brow but started jogging, moving a little sluggishly until he got into his stride, "Do you have any idea how stupid I feel doing this?"

"Does it compare to how stupid you look?" Sam mused, "I could get you a nice pink headband and you could go to all the ladies' gyms."

"Mmm, hot women in lycra."

"Fat women in lycra." Sam corrected.

Dean just shook his head, "Women in lycra, doesn't matter to me." The happy smile on Dean's face lasted about two minutes before it gave way to boredom, "This is dull. Can I at least go jogging outside? Running through the slush will tire me out faster."

Sam shook his head, "I know I'm usually faster than you but I can't trust you won't veer off and find some burst of speed from somewhere. I'm still not sure how this summoning thing happens."

Dean sighed, "Do you remember when Dad used to make us run on the spots for hours as punishment?"

"I remember he used to make you do it," Sam said, "It wasn't much of a punishment for me as I have an attention span longer than two seconds."

"I have an attention span longer than two seconds," Dean grouched, "But jogging on the spot is so damn boring." Dean started hiking his knees up towards his chin in a futile attempt to make things more interesting, "Can I at least make up a marching chant like I did when we were kids?"

Sam snorted, "I don't think 'I'm a badass demon hunter. Something something la la dunter' really counted as a chant."

"Hey, I was twelve. And, unlike some of us, not an emo poet boy in training. Plus hunter is damn hard to rhyme with!"

"I remember what you tried to rhyme it with."

Dean smirked, "I remember Dad yelling down the phone at Bobby when he learnt where I'd found out that word from."

"I remember Dad banning you from joining in on the hunt for a week." Sam retorted.

"And I remember Dad letting me hunt after two days 'cos he found something which was a two man job and you were still too scrawny."

Sam glanced melancholy to the ground, lost briefly in remembrance, "I remember you coming back to the motel room soaked in blood after the ghoul tossed you onto a graveyard fence. I remember begging Dad to take you to a hospital. I remember picking up the cell phone to dial 911 and having it slapped out of my hand."

Sam could see his brother roll his eyes, even as he kept jogging, "It wasn't as bad as it looked."

"You had a fucking hole in your side." Sam bit out the words.

Dean's hand strayed to where a perfect ring of scar tissue at his waist remained a legacy of that incident, "Yeah but the pole didn't hit anything important so Dad could just sew it up. Do I need to remind you that I was fine?"

"You are always fine," Sam stated, "And Dad didn't know that you'd be fine."

"Oh for fuck's sake, Sammy." Dean protested, "You can't blame Dad for every time I got hurt on a hunt as a kid. The man was in the marines, I think he can manage a bit of basic field medicine."

'Can't I?' Sam thought silently to himself, knowing that to voice the sentiment would just exacerbate the argument, "Fine. Tired yet?"

"Are you kidding?" Dean asked, "I'm not even breaking a sweat. I think this plan ain't gonna work unless you plan on me running the entire night."

Sam had hoped that Dean's fragile health would have been his ally on this but obviously that wasn't working out so well, "Maybe shooting you wasn't such a bad idea." He mused aloud.

"Try it, bitch." Dean snapped back, "And see just how tired I am."

"Well, it's either this or I tie a rope connecting you to the back of the Impala and start accelerating. See how long it takes you to get tired then."

Dean glowered, "Like I'd let you drive my baby in this snow. You'd probably skid and crash her and then I'd have to kill you and there'd be no-one to stop me taking a header into the snow. We don't even know this will work, I could just crawl out no matter how exhausted I am."

"Keep running," Sam just said, scanning the room again for anything. Unfortunately the motel room was about as sparse as most motel rooms were with just the boys' duffels and some old furniture which wouldn't withstand the onslaught of even a weak Winchester, "If it wasn't so cold outside, I could lock you in the boot of the Impala." Sam mused aloud.

Dean suddenly perked up though Sam assumed it wasn't at Sam's suggestion, "Why don't we spar? That'll tire me out faster."

Sam immediately shook his head, "The state you are in? I don't want to hurt you, Dean."

Dean snorted, "I can beat you even feeling as bad as I do. Come on, it'll be fun. Keep in practice."

Sam was still shaking his head when Dean threw the first punch at his face. Dean was still far below his usual standard and the attempted blow was easy for Sam to dodge. Sam's instincts told him to retaliate but he refused, just gripping Dean's shoulders instead, "Dean, I'm not going to hurt you."

Sam was entirely unprepared for Dean to head butt him. It wasn't hard but it was enough for Sam's grip to loosen and for Dean to pull free, "And I keep telling you, I'm not the one who needs to worry about getting hurt. Really Sam, have you forgotten all Dad's training?"

Sam had enough then and let loose with a right hook that collided with a satisfying thump to the side of his brother's face. As soon as Sam saw his brother's startled and sluggish attempt to move out of the way and then his tilting towards the ground, guilt overwhelmed any satisfaction and Sam thumped to his knees on the ground next to his brother, "Dean?"

Dean blinked dazed up at him, "Your right hook has gotten better." He complimented, bringing up a hand to rub his jaw, "That was a lucky hit though." Dean tried to push himself up from the ground but his over-worked muscles chose that moment to protest, sending him sprawling back to the ground with a thump, "Ow."

Sam didn't wait for a protest that time, just pushed one arm under the crook of Dean's knees and the other behind his back and lifted. He walked quickly to the bed, not giving Dean any time to protest or kick out before he was depositing his brother back down on the bed, "Don't think you'll be moving anywhere tonight." Sam said, piling the blankets back onto his brother.

Dean attempted to sit up and let out a gasp of pain and flumped back down into the pillows, "Hmpf. Your plans seriously suck."

Sam walked over to his own bed, shucking off his boots but not undressing just in case his plan didn't succeed and he needed to wake up in the middle of the night to get wayward brothers back to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimers and notes in Chapter one**

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone who has been reviewing. Sorry I haven't replied, not entirely sure if review replies get through with alerts down and it's impossible to keep track of which I have and haven't replied to without the emails. We're now approximately halfway through the story.

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When Sam woke up in the morning and found Dean not asleep in his bed, he panicked. He scrambled up out of bed and grabbed his shoes, feeling grateful for his decision not to undress the night before. Sam had just closed his hand around the door knob when it opened from the other side. Dean stood on the other side with a paper bag tucked under one arm, balancing two coffees in the other hand and a blossoming purple bruise on his right cheek where Sam had struck him, "Hey Sammy. Got supplies." He held up the bag, "You're up early." 

Sam scowled, "I thought you'd wandered into the snow again. You don't leave here unless I'm awake."

Dean rolled his eyes, "I figured you might appreciate a coffee in the morning. If you don't want it, I'll have both." Dean dropped the paper bag down on the kitchen counter and then held one of the coffees out to Sam.

Sam took it and took a tentative sip, the walk back from the store had cooled the coffee to a drinkable level, "Thanks Dean. How's the snow?"

"Probably still too deep to drive in. It's slushy around town but I have a feeling it'll be too deep to get through where the roads haven't been cleared and I don't fancy trying to dig our way through."

"So now we need to figure out what to do?" Sam said, disappointed that they couldn't just drive out of there.

"Actually, I've got an idea," Dean said, gulping down his own coffee, "I asked the store owner about local history and he said that the person to talk to is that barman at the local bar. Apparently he has lived there his whole life and is quite a history buff."

"Mr Monosyllabic?" Sam asked, "We've more chance of getting blood out of a stone or the word 'please' out of Bobby before we get a story out of that guy."

"Ah but we have the puppy dog eyes on our side." Dean pointed out, putting down his coffee in order to unload the shopping. It appears to be mainly bottles of beer which got put straight into the fridge and then a few cheap insta-meals and Sam noticed a large jar of coffee and a smaller one of hot chocolate.

"Fine. The bar should be open by eleven." Sam said, "Did you get any breakfast?"

"Ye of so little faith," Dean said before brandishing a couple of bagels out of the bag and tossing one at his brother's head.

Sam caught it with the sharp reflexes ingrained into him from childhood training and then walked into the kitchen, grabbing the least dirty knife and spreading a smear of peanut butter across the divided halves, "Don't forget it is your turn to do the washing up."

Dean wrinkled his nose, "How you can mix peanut butter and bagels I don't know," Dean just popped a thin smear of butter onto his, "And I'm too ill to wash up." Dean coughed, it was an obviously fake cough but Sam could hear the worrying trace of congestion behind it that made it clear that Dean wasn't recovered from his bout of hypothermia entirely.

The rest of breakfast passed mostly in silence with Sam forcing himself not to bug his brother about his health. At least Dean appeared to be eating now though he was still nibbling on the first half of his bagel as Sam took the last bite of his. By the time Dean finished, Sam had done the washing up and cleared up the kitchen.

A few hours later Sam and Dean entered the bar. It contained exactly the same people as when Sam had come in before looking for his errant brother. One of the gentlemen at the bar turned around at the sound of the door, "Ah, found your brother then? Ready for that rematch?" He squinted beetle brown eyes at the older Winchester's face, "you okay there, lad? What happened to your face?" The main pointed to the bruise and Sam felt a guilty twinge.

Dean's face had lit up at the sound of a rematch though he still looked tired, "M'fine, I was just born this handsome." He said before adding, "Just got a bit of a cold, walked into a door frame. Are you sure you can afford playing again?"

The man didn't seem the least bit offended, just let loose a belly laugh and stood with a half-full Guinness in one hand, "We'll see, boy."

The man's friend, a red-bearded shadow, stood as well and followed. Dean gave his brother a hapless 'What can you do?' shrug to Sam and made his way to the pool table, some of the cocky swagger back in his step.

Sam walked up to the bar and took one of the vacated bar stools, "Guinness please," he asked, knowing he was unlikely to get a word from the barman if he chose something softer.

The barman nodded and started to pour the drink, the thick dark liquid coming out of the tap seemed eerily reminiscent of the ghost-controlled lake water they'd come up again in Wisconsin.

After what seemed like an eternity the pint glass was full of muggy brown-grey liquid which was very slowly settling to a pitch dark, "So, you grew up here?" Sam attempted to strike up a conversation.

"Yup," The barman monotoned before turning back to his precious pumps.

"Saw the church display, I bet you know even more stories." Sam attempted flattery.

The barman glanced up to Sam, his gaze intent on the younger man, "Yup," He said and his gaze dropped again.

Sam took a sip of Guinness and resisted the urge to spit it out. It was so bitter that Sam could almost feel his tongue shrivel, "Did you know Padraig Finnegan?"

Sam saw the first flicker of emotion in the barman's eyes and it was distrust, "Yup," And then as a minor miracle added, "Good man."

"I'm just interested in local history of small towns," Sam lied, "It's amazing this place has retained so much of its Irish heritage. Padraig must have had a big influence."

"He did," The barman said and Sam decided smacking his own head against the bar was unlikely to improve matters so he resisted.

"Shame about what happened to his brother. That must've been hard." Sam was determined to get more than one syllable words if he had to die trying.

The barman's eyes clouded and the next words seemed mainly said to himself, "More than you know." Four words at once though still not multi-syllable.

Sam briefly considered pretending he hadn't heard and prodding the barman more but decided that being upfront was likely to garner better results, "Really?" He asked, leaning forward to pay full attention.

"Yup," The barman said.

Sam fixed his smile and turned his attention towards his brother and the pool table. Dean was still wavering on unsteady feet but from the sly smile Sam recognised, he was getting ready to fleece the man again. Sam usually felt some sympathy for those unwittingly funding the hunting lifestyle but this guy had lined himself up for it twice, "How do you mean?" Two could play the mono-syllabic game.

"Ever lost a brother?" The man asked, becoming more hostile which had previously seemed an impossibility to Sam.

Sam quick-glanced to his brother once more, "Almost, a few times." He said, endowing the words with all that almost losing Dean had made him feel in the hopes that it'd help.

For a brief moment sympathy was reflected in the old man's eyes, "Nothing worse. Never had a brother myself but when Ciaran died, Paddy.." The barman paused, sensing he'd said too much, "Paddy faded away."

Sam still suspected that there was something about Ciaran's death that wasn't being said but Sam didn't want to push in case the barman clammed up again, "Did both brothers fight during the war?"

The barman shook his head, "Paddy got a gammy knee from a riding accident as a boy. They wouldn't take him though he begged them."

A bark of laughter drew Sam's attention back to the table where the gentlemen was holding a wad of folded cash out to Dean who took it with a grin though Sam could make out white knuckles from Dean's use of the cue to keep himself upright.

As the two men walked back to retake their perches at the bar, Sam knew his conversation with the barman was at an end. He thanked the barman and walked over to his brother, "Are you okay?"

Dean's face was tight and drawn, "Just a bit dizzy. All that bobbing up and down to take the shot." The fact that Dean was admitting even that much was worrying, "Find out much from Lurch?" Dean nodded towards the barman.

Sam shrugged, "I'm not sure. I found out a bit more but there's definitely something the barman wasn't telling me. Do you want to head back to the motel? Can you walk?"

One of the gentlemen at the bar noticed the brothers' hushed conversation and made his way back over, "Is he alright? He looks two shades paler than the grave. You don't want to get sick this close to Christmas." The man looked a little guilty, probably from keeping the obviously sick Dean on his feet, even if Dean had still won.

"He's too stubborn to rest when sick," Sam answered, ignoring the venomous look from his brother, "He'll be fine after a night's rest." If only he could get a night's rest.

"You need a hand getting him back to yours?" The man offered, "Be not the first time I've hauled a man home though mostly when they are worse for wear from drink."

Dean shot Sam a look that clearly translated from Winchester as 'Don't even think about it!'

"That's alright," Sam replied, "I should be able to manage. It'll be his own fault if he falls flat on his face. Thanks for the offer."

"If you are sure," The man said with a nod and then turned back to the bar.

Sam turned back to his ailing brother, "Now, you either accept me helping you or I'll call Seamus over there back and let him carry you over his shoulders."

Dean scowled, "His name is Diarmuid and he knows every single off-colour joke between here and the east coast of Ireland but none of the punchlines." Dean's slight lean towards Sam was the only sign of his concession to allow his brother's support.

Sam took Dean's arm across his shoulders and then anchored his own around Dean's waist. He wondered if Dean would object so much if he knew Sam hated supporting his brother as much as Dean hated being supported. There was something incredibly wrong with his brother needing help or appearing fragile.

"Dude, if I'd known this was an excuse for a cuddle," Dean's voice stirred Sam out of contemplation, "We going to the motel or not?"

"Sure, when you won't be doing most of the work." Sam mock-grumbled, taking a few slow steps, making sure he had his brother adequately supported.

The journey back to the motel took longer than either brother would have liked. Most of the snow had been turned to slush on the pavements and the cold weather had caused some of the slush to freeze. Sam's feet tried to slide out from beneath him frequently. A couple of times he slid, almost sending himself and Dean sprawling, just managing to catch himself in time.

By the time they reached the motel Sam was ready to collapse, let alone his sickly brother. Dean was shivering from a combination of the cold and exhaustion and Sam ignored his protests to tug Dean to the bed and piled the blankets around him, "Don't think we'll need any exercises tonight. You want something to drink?"

Despite Dean's objections, he snuggled under the blankets, pulling them tight until the shivering slowed, "Hot chocolate?" Dean asked in a small voice, "With marshmallows."

Sam rolled his eyes and kicked off his soggy shoes before filling the kettle and setting it to boil. With a little showmanship, Sam brandished a small bag of marshmallows from the drawer, laughing out loud at the surprised expression on the older man's face, "I know you so well."

"You'll make someone a great little wife someday, Sammy." Dean teased, his voice muffled by the blanket over his face.

Sam poured the boiled water into the mugs and then dropped in enough of the small marshmallows to turn the top few centimetres of the mug into frothy white. He popped the bag back into the drawer, suspecting there would be many more hot chocolates to come before the day was out.

**A/N:** And to get you excited about the next chapter, I will use only two words: Bobby Singer! Stay tuned, folks!


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**A/N: **This chapter should contain warnings for gratuitous usage of Bobby. I can't help that I love the character, he is definitely my favourite non-Winchester.

Posted in celebration of alerts returning! Thanks to everyone that read and reviewed despite the difficulties!

* * *

Dean lay on the bed, insensible though not unconscious and Sam watched until his eyes burned and he had to look away. Finally he stood and grabbed his cell phone, glad to see a weak but present signal and scrolled down the list in the address book until he reached a familiar name. He pressed dial and heard the ringing tone three times before it was picked up, "Hey Bobby, it's Sam." 

"Winchester?" Sam heard the surprised exclamation from the other hunter and remembered too late that his father and Bobby hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms. Sam replied in the affirmative and heard a chuckle from the hunter, "Got dragged back into the family business again then?"

"Something like that," Sam said non-committal, "I've run into a problem that I could use your expertise on. Have you got a bit of time?"

Sam could almost hear the other hunter's thought processes grinding away on the other end of the telephone, "Why don't you just spit out what mess you've gotten yourself into and I'll tell you how to get out of it?"

"What makes you think I've gotten into a mess?" Sam asked defensively, barely suppressing the little boy whine from his voice.

"Because, unless you went the whole hog and changed it, your surname is still Winchester."

Sam sighed, "Well, there's a small town in North Dakota with a harpy problem." Sam decided to start at the beginning.

"Dean's been kidnapped by the harpies?" Bobby asked wearily.

Sam shook his head and then realised the pointlessness of that gesture, "No."

"Dean's willingly gone off with the harpies and this is a wedding invite?" Bobby joked.

Sam snorted, "No.."

Bobby cut in again, "You've been kidnapped by the harpies and you've forgotten your brother's phone number."

"No!" Sam bit off irritably, his patience for the older hunter's teasing exceeded, "We didn't make it to the bloody harpies." Sam drew a breath to continue his story, "We stopped off at a motel in a small Irish-founded town along the way."

"Please don't tell me Dean has finally got to hunt that frigging leprechaun?" Sam heard Bobby mutter a string of curses too indistinct to make out over the phone line. Sam couldn't suppress a wince that a man he saw once or twice a year knew about Dean's leprechaun obsession when he hadn't.

"No, no leprechauns. Nothing supernatural whatsoever."

"You called me because you are staying in a place with no supernatural whatsoever?" Bobby's voice expressed his confusion, "Fine, gimme the address and I'll flaming retire there." There was a pause on the line before Bobby added, "In forty or fifty years."

"Could you stop interrupting?" Sam said, an anxious note creeping into his voice once again as he glanced to his brother's ashen face.

"Sam? What's wrong? Are your brother and Dad alright?"

Sam bit back a giggle, "Dad? I haven't seen my Dad for over four years. Dean is… He's…" Sam tried to find the right words. Dean is dying? No, that was too final. Dean is sick? That wasn't serious enough. Dean is really sick? That just made Sam sound like a five year old. "Dean's not good." Sam settled on.

Sam heard the huff and crackle as Bobby exhaled into the phone and when he spoke again, his voice was comforting concern, "Okay Sam, tell me everything."

Those five simple words opened the floodgates and Sam found himself talking so fast that he swore the words were probably overlapping themselves. He told Bobby about the dive into the snow and the hypothermia, he told Bobby about the fact Dean hadn't been sleeping, he told him about the barman and the fact he was definitely hiding something about the founding brothers, he'd even described how he'd ended up having to almost beat Dean up in order to make sure he couldn't sneak out in the night.

When he finally finished and paused to gulp breath. He had to wonder whether Bobby was still there, reassured only by the sound of the man breathing on the other side, "Have you got a copy of the spell you can send me?" Bobby asked.

"Not really. I took a rubbing off the grave but there are no places here where I can scan it in. I could try typing it out but there's a few odd letters." Sam answered.

"Just do the best you can and get it to me. I don't know Gaelic that well myself but I've got a good few books and I have a couple of people I can contact. How's Dean now?"

Sam held the phone up against his ear with his shoulder and walked over to Dean's bedside, gripping the sweaty hand and rubbing his thumb over it, "He's not good." Even as Sam spoke, Dean's glassy eyes sought out his own, only the slightest hint of consciousness lurking in them, "He's running a temperature, I haven't checked exactly how high. He could barely walk after we returned from the pool game though I don't know how much of that was muscle strains from all the running I made him do."

Sam could almost hear Bobby's frown, "I'd say the best solution is the same one as if you were dealing with a curse, get yourself and Dean out of there. Is the snow clear yet?"

"Not quite," Sam answered, "At least not enough that Dean would trust me to drive the Impala and he sure as hell can't drive it himself."

"I don't think you should give him a choice," Bobby said, "I wish I could help out more but without seeing more about this protection spell I can't tell. I have to say that it doesn't make much sense to me. A Celtic spell would likely be geared towards the seelie or the unseelie, Dean as a mortal doesn't fall under either of those categories and I don't know of any non-specific spells. Dean hasn't been turned into a selkie while I was away, has he?"

"If he has, he hasn't told me. But then given this is Dean, he probably wouldn't tell me until he needed to say 'Sorry Sammy, gotta nip off and turn into a seal for a few hours. Back in a bit.'" Sam bit back an inappropriate laugh.

"I think we can rule that out as a possibility. Look, drive out of there and head up to my place. Shouldn't be more than a day's drive. If the effect doesn't get broken when you drive out of town then at least I'll have a better chance of seeing what is up if Dean is here. I'd offer to come pick you up but I think I'll be more help hitting the books."

"Okay, Bobby, Thanks." Sam hung up and grabbed the rubbing from his pocket. He pulled over his laptop and opened up the word processor, tapping out the closest copy of the rubbing that he could, making notes about the letters which he couldn't find any approximation of. Finally at the bottom, he added what he'd been able to translate and sent it off to Bobby's email address, hoping the other hunter would be able to find the vital clue that he'd missed.

He paced back to Dean's bedside, picking up the Impala keys and turning them over in his hands, running his fingers along the smooth metal. "Sam?" He heard Dean's weak voice and looked to see his brother's eyes focus on him a little, "What you doing awake? Did I hear the phone?"

Sam didn't fancy getting into a debate about whether he should have rung Bobby or not so he should shook his head, knowing he shouldn't really take advantage of his brother's debilitated state, "Can't sleep yet."

"You have to sleep," Dean said weakly, "One of us has to sleep. You want me to make it an order? 'cos I will! I'm the big brother and I still get to order you about." Dean turned his head away, eyes unfocusing once more.

Sam reached up to cup his brother's face, "Dean? Come on. We're getting out of here in the morning, okay? Even if I have to haul you into the car myself."

"Sam," Dean croaked, "Go to sleep. That's an order."

A/N: Next chapter will be posted some time this weekend and it's one I've been looking forward to posting for a while.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**A/N: **Thanks for all the feedback so far, it makes me bounce every time I see the little icon indicating new mail waiting. Hopefully this chapter lives up to the evil teasing about it.

* * *

Sam tried to sleep as Dean ordered but every time he got close to nodding off, a barely stifled moan would jolt him back to full consciousness. Every glance to his brother's bed showed him paler and with more beads of sweat rolling down his face. 

Finally Sam had enough and pulled on his jeans and cleanest t-shirt before heading over to his brother, "Dean? Dean!"

It took a while for darting hazel green eyes to find their way to Sam's face and for a moment there was a bone-chilling lack of recognition, swiftly chased away, "Sammy? S'posed to be sleeping." Dean attempted the authoritative big brother voice with little success.

"You're keeping me awake so I thought we should make a start on getting out of here." Sam tried to let none of the worry he felt creep into his voice, knowing nothing would make his brother balk faster.

"Getting itchy feet? Guess I better get up or you might just leave without me." Sam mentally flinched, hoping that was just the fever talking.

Sam stowed away their belongings, keeping his eyes averted from Dean's clumsy attempts to sit up and dress himself. By the time Sam had put everything into the Impala's trunk Dean was mostly dressed, engaged in the complicated activity of tying his boot laces. Sam could still remember Dean laboriously teaching him to tie his shoe laces using bunny ears. Dean currently seemed to be employing the unusual technique known as the spaghetti monster's intestines.

"You finished faffing about? Ready to go?" Dean asked as if Sam had been the one holding up their departure.

Sam bit back a retort, "Not my fault that my idea of packing isn't throwing everything in a bag and stomping on it until it fits."

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"Tell that to my kazoo."

"Dude seriously, a kazoo? I was doing you a favour."

"I was going to be in the end of term kazoo concert."

"Maybe I was doing myself and Dad a favour then."

Sam was glad to hear his brother almost sounding like himself, if a hoarse muted version. "I always suspected it was on purpose, especially when Dad refused to buy me a new one."

"Nah, we were just skint that month. The phony credit card got turned down. Apparently they cottoned on that Ozzy Mandias was unlikely to be a real person. I told Dad we should've gone with Ozzy Osbourne instead. Me and Dad had to take it in turns to eat that month."

Sam gaped at his brother, "You never told me that." He could recall now that he hadn't seen his brother and his Dad eating with him at the same time that month, at the time it had just seemed like they were both too busy.

"You were twelve." Dean said as if it was the most simple thing in the world, "Growing boy and all that. Though if it'd known how much you were going to grow, I might've let you starve with us once or twice."

Sam resisted the urge to pace. It always seemed there were two versions of his childhood: his version and the real one where brothers got clawed and starved and fathers didn't always get there in time. It always made him feel guilty about how protected he had been, "Come on, lets get out to the car." He said a little sharper than he meant to, offering a hand to haul Dean up.

Dean stubbornly pushed himself up to his feet and totted for a moment before beginning to keel backwards. Sam stepped forward and caught him before he could fall and then twisted sideways hooking Dean's arm over his shoulders then curling his own arm around Dean's waist. He'd rather do a fully carry but knew Dean'd never agree to that and he didn't fancy getting kicked by flailing legs. Dean grumbled a protest but didn't verbalise it.

It took longer than Sam liked to stagger their way to the car. What Dean lacked in inches on Sam, he more than made up for in muscle, Sam practically had to stuff his brother into passenger seat before swinging to get in the driver's side.

The heavy snow was now a melted slush on the roads and Sam could feel the slide of the wheel grip as he had to fight for control, spray arcing out from the wheel's track.

A check on his brother revealed his eyes were closed but Sam knew he wasn't sleeping, especially as he flinched at every unnatural glide of the Impala. He could see the crease at the corner of Dean's eyes that meant his brother was in pain and determined not to show it.

"Now, where did I put the Britney Spears tape?" Sam pondered aloud, unable to bear the silence.

Dean turned to his brother, eyes opening hazily, "If you even brought a Britney Spears tape into the car then I'm going to need to perform an exorcism on you."

"I think Dean Winchester listening to Britney Spears is one of the signs of the apocalypse, the other being John Winchester answering his phone to his sons."

"Or Sam Winchester not whining about his father for five minutes," Dean gave Sam 'the look', "You didn't call him about this, did you?"

Sam shook his head, "As much as I enjoy having those long conversations with his answering machine, I think we need to give each other space."

"Get over it," Dean growled.

"You saying it doesn't bother you?" Sam said in a disbelieving voice.

"Of course it does." Dean snapped, the drawn lines of pain becoming more evident on his face sending a stab of guilt into Sam's gut, "But Dad'll call us when it's time to take that mother-murdering, girlfriend-gutting bastard down. 'Til then, we'll take everything else down."

Sam focused on the road, watching as the flat land around the town gave way to forest, the branches still hung with snow dripping off.

"We'll take everything else down, right?" Dean repeated, his tone making it clear that Sam agreeing was something important to him.

"We'll take everything else down." Sam agreed in a tired voice.

"Good," Dean breathed out with a sigh of relief and then, to Sam's horror, didn't breathe back in.

Sam braked to a screeching halt and leaned across to his brother, "Dean?" Dean's mouth was slightly parted but no breath moved in or out. His eyes were open but glassy. "Dean!" Sam rushed around to the passenger side and hauled his brother out, "Don't do this to me." He pled, feeling the lack of a pulse at his brother's neck. Sam started CPR on automatic, his hands trying to thump life into an unresponsive heart and his mouth breathing air into still lungs, all the while his brain was too busy protesting how his brother could die between one moment and the next. After five minutes of Sam breathing for his brother, Dean's chest still didn't stir of its own accord. Sam raised his head to scream up at the God he'd still trusted when he spotted the village welcome sign they'd just passed.

A horrible thought occurred to him and Sam hoisted his brother's limp lifeless body, laying it out on the backseat of the Impala before racing around to the driver's seat. He span the Impala one hundred and eighty degrees, ignoring the squeal of the tyres and the scent of burning rubber, and then slammed his foot down on the accelerator and sped back into town, his eyes fixed on the rear view mirror, watching his brother's still body for any sign of life. One minute after they passed the sign, Dean came back to life with a gasp and Sam felt his own heart beating properly once more.

Dean sat up, his eyes reflecting more emotion than their guarded state usually allowed. Fear, startlement, worry, all battled for supremacy with the hazel and the green. "Sam?" Dean's voice was shaky, sounding far younger than Dean had ever allowed himself to be after their mother's death.

Sam brought the car to a gentle halt by the side of the road and then walked on shaky legs to the edge of the forest where he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the grass and then continued to dry heave long after it was empty. Bitter tears seeped from his eyes and coursed down his face.

The sound of a car door opening and closing heralded the stumbling arrival of his brother at his side and a rough hand decked in a simple silver ring pushed Sam's hair back from his face in such a gentle gesture that Sam turned and seized his brother in the tightest hug he could manage as if that could anchor Dean's soul into his body and never allow him to leave.

"Sammy, breathing becoming an issue here." Dean said.

Sam choked, remembering how inappropriate the words were. He didn't loosen the hold, if anything it made him grab even tighter.

"Sammy," Dean's voice was confused and worried in equal measure, "What the hell happened?"

"You died." Sam croaked out, finally releasing Dean though he kept his fingers curled up in the fabric of Dean's jacket, "Between one second and the net, you stopped breathing, your heart stopped and I tried to revive you, I tried so hard but you weren't breathing and.." Sam felt Dean's hand rubbing soothing circles on his back.

"You managed it alright, Sammy. I'm all breathing now and not looking to stop anytime soon." Dean said.

Sam shook his head, "I couldn't but I saw the sign for leaving this place and I just stuck you in the back and drove back towards town and you started breathing on your own."

"Oh." Dean listed back on his heels and Sam had to tighten his grip on Dean's jacket to avoid his brother sprawling backwards, "What kind of weird ass protection spell is this? Kicks my ass in the town and kills me when I try to leave. I think we need to go back and see Lurch, see how much he knows."

"Because he was so verbose last time."

"Verbose?" Dean teased, "Maybe you should let me do the talking, give the guy a chance to understand what he's being asked."

"And cut down on your chance to fleece more money out of those two poor suckers."

"Pff," Dean snorted, "The game is boring when there's no contest. Poor guy missed so many easy shots I was almost sure he must be hustling me himself until he fucked up the final game too."

"Well, maybe you could flirt with the barmaid instead."

"Did you see the barmaid up close? Fugly! Both eyes going off in different directions and most of her teeth in sideways. Was enough to give you nightmares."

"Yeah," Sam deadpanned, "Because vampires, demons and ghosts are fine but ugly barmaids, they'll give you the creeps."

"Seriously!" Dean agreed. The ground was cold against Sam's bent knees and he could see Dean beginning to shiver in the freezing night air.

"Come on, let's get back to the motel." Sam stood, feeling a shake in his knees which didn't prevent him from lifting Dean up and supporting his brother back to the car.

Dean rested his hand against the back of the seat and, as Sam watched, he seemed to curl in on himself.

Sam slung himself into the driver's seat, "You okay?"

Dean gifted Sam with a tired smile and a thumbs up, "Just peachy for a dead man. Could use a good night's sleep."

"I think we need to pick option D. Smash the crap out of the protection spell." Sam longed for the comforting weight of a sledgehammer to smash that gravestone.

"What about the townspeople?" Dean asked.

"They'll just have to learn to deal with things that go bump in the dark like everyone else." Sam's tone dripped with enough contempt to draw a surprised glance from his brother, "What?"

"I think we need to get the true story out of Lurch first, you said you thought he was hiding something."

"Since when have you been 'Ask questions first, salt later'?"

Dean glanced down and away, one of the sure tells that he wasn't saying something.

"What?" Sam demanded.

"What if we smash that thing and it doesn't work? What if the spell considers you a threat too?" Dean reached over to grip Sam's arm, not tight enough to impede his driving, "If I die, Sammy, you put this place in your rear view and you don't look back."

Sam pulled his arm away from his brother's far too weak grip in disgust, "You die and I'll salt and burn the entire place."

Dean grabbed Sam's arm angrily, using his remaining strength to grip bruisingly tight, "You leave, Sammy, promise me you leave."

Sam still broke his brother's grasp without too many issues, "It's Sam and I've had enough of you and Dad protecting me, it's my turn. You are not going to die, I am not letting some backwards nowhereville kill you."

Dean sighed, his face letting the fullness of the pain and tiredness flow through him, "Damnit Sammy. You can be so like Dad sometimes, both of you stubborn to the point of stupidity. Just get to the motel and we'll talk about this I the morning."

The rest of the journey was spent in silence and as soon as Sam turned off the engine, Dean tumbled out of the door and careered towards the motel door. The key was still in the door where Sam had left it.

By the time Sam got into the room, Dean was sprawled on the bed, eyes closed even though Sam knew he couldn't be asleep. His face looked more flushed than before and Sam could hear a congested crackle as each breath of air was sucked in.

Sam reached into his duffle pulling a mobile phone out, his fingers resting against the button for speed-dialling their father. Dean muttered incoherently in his waking fever dream and Sam's finger twitched on the key. He needed help on this. He knew that Bobby would be the best person to contact again, give him the new information and see what he made of it but the part of Sam that was still five years old wanted his father to ride in like a slightly tarnished off-white knight and fix everything.

Sam resolved to ring his father and keep ringing until his father picked up. This would be no repeat of the heart incident. Dean was dying and this time his Dad would damn well turn-up.

Just as Sam was about to press down the button, the chime of midnight sounded from the church clock in the distance and there was a knock at the door.

**A/N:** Who could it be? Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out!


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**A/N: **Thanks for all the awesome reviews. Sorry to all of those that wanted it to be John riding to the rescue. As much as I adore the man, I just don't think he's got a psychic 'sons in danger' sense in his retinue, it'd probably be going off far too often. Would drive the poor guy nuts. I'll see if I can't get a nice JohnFic up soon to make up for it.

* * *

Sam grabbed the shotgun, checking both barrels were loaded with rock salt before hiding it behind his back, creaking open the door and looking out. 

Standing on the doorstep was an old man. No, he was beyond old. He was stooped over, his limbs thin with thick veins threaded just below the surface. His face was a maze of wrinkles and his still sharp green eyes were decorated at the corner by numerous cragging crows feet. He gave a smile to Sam, pushing a hand back through hair that was still thick but as bone white as the stark winter sky. Sam felt himself relax until the man spoke with a voice as strong as a man a quarter of his age, "My name is Padraig Finnegan, I believe you'll want to talk to me."

In one fluid movement Sam swung his shotgun from behind his back to level it at the old man's chest, "What the hell did you do?"

The old man didn't deny it but lifted frail hands in a pacifying gesture, "Please, may I come in? I have much to say and only so much time to say it." His accent was a thick Irish brogue, only a slight twang the legacy of a life lived in the states.

Sam glanced once backwards to where his barely conscious brother lay, hoping for some guidance which wouldn't be coming, "Fine. You go nowhere near my brother. Do nothing suspicious or I won't hesitate to shoot you."

A soulful sad look filled the old man's gaze as his eyes met Sam's, "I promise you that I wish no harm on you or your brother."

"Why don't I believe you?" Sam dripped acid, not even needing to look around to where Dean lay, twisting in the grip of the fever.

"Your brother's condition is unfortunate…"

"Unfortunate?!" Sam didn't usually use his height against people but he had no regrets in towering over the shrunken old man. "He stopped breathing."

"You tried to leave. I'm afraid he can't leave." Sam was chilled by the man's level reasonable tone.

"Ever?" Sam mocked then shuddered when he saw the concordance in the man's eyes, "Ever?! Fuck that. My brother and I will smash this little protection thing and this whole godforsaken town can chew on our dust."

"And they'll choke on it." The old man stated, "You remove the protection and every man, woman or child in this place will die before the light of your headlamps fade from view." The Irish tones were heavy with regret now.

"What?" Sam exclaimed stilling his voice as soon as he heard Dean's murmured protests.

"A curse," The man said, "And a powerful one at that."

"Against the village?" Sam asked, unsure if he believed the sorrowful man, especially about being Padraig Finnegan.

Padraig shook his head, "Against me, against my kith and kin and their kith and kin and so on until it covers the entire village."

Sam nodded, taking that in before fixing his eyes intently on the man's, "I'm sorry but how does that concern my brother?"

The man's face lit with a wry humour, "You may not have noticed this but I'm old. I'm very old and so very tired. I've borne the weight of this protection spell for almost eighty years. I need a successor."

The implication of that recoiled through Sam, "Dean? Can't you just pick one of your precious villagers to be your successor?"

Padraig chuckled, "A slight flaw in the protection spell. It protects from anything supernatural including itself so no-one under the protection can take on the protection."

"How convenient."

"Not at all. This place gets few visitors and until now none were suitable. I have carried this burden a long time."

"What does the burden involve?" A croaking voice came from behind Sam and he rushed to his brother's bedside. Sam pressed a hand to Dean's sweat-damp still hot forehead, "Dude, hands." Dean protested.

Padraig sensibly didn't move from his spot except to turn towards the brothers, "The protection is sealed to your blood. For as long as you stay within the shrine, the curse can not come through."

"Then how are you here?" Sam asked.

"Winter solstice." Padraig answered, "The natural magic protects us now as it does at summer solstice. You can also leave at the Equinoxes when all magic is weakened in the balance."

"So what else?" Dean asked.

"The unsleeping guardian." Sam remembered the piece of the gravestone he'd translated.

Padraig nodded, "I haven't slept for almost eighty years. The spell protects you from most of the degradations of sleep deprivation."

"It doesn't seem to be doing a great job so far." Sam spat out.

"The passing of the protection responsibilities is only half-complete." Padraig said, "For it to be complete, Dean will need to come to the shrine to perform the last parts."

"So if Dean doesn't come to the shrine, he won't get stuck with this gig." Sam had already made the decision, just needed to figure out how to break what Padraig had done so he and Dean can get out of here.

"Sammy," Dean chided, "Can we bring someone else here? Someone who'd want this kind of gig?"

The old man shook his head sadly, "I have already begun the rite to pass over protection. If I undo it on Dean, the half he now carries will be lost and the curse will get through."

"So that's what that walking in the snow gig was about, right?" Dean asked, "Getting me to the shrine."

The old man looked sheepish, "I had forgotten the fragility of the normal human body and I didn't realise how deep the snow was down here in the town. One of the guys running the motel saw what happened and sent his daughter up to talk to me to make sure I found a different way. Not sure how the motel owner knew it was me but I always suspected he had the Sight."

"So the whole town is in on the gag?" Sam said bitterly, "If I'd accepted Diarmuid's help to get Dean home, would he have absconded with my brother up into the forest?"

"These are good people." Padraig protested, "All of them know about me and the protection but only the motel owner and Declan, the guy who runs the bar, know about you being chosen as my successor."

"Maybe I'm missing the point here," Sam said, "But why exactly should my brother do this?"

"Sammy," Dean growled but Sam wouldn't let him speak, knowing what the ever sacrificing Dean Winchester's decision would be and refusing to let him make it.

"Shut up Dean." Sam snapped at his brother, glancing back to face the old man, "Well?"

Padraig ignored Sam for the moment and spoke directly to Dean, "When I pass over the protection, you will inherit my half of it which means that all my kith and kin and so on will be protected from the supernatural. You will also add your own half." He paused to let the implication of that sink in.

Sam had never felt like punching an old person before so much in his life as he saw realisation sink in on Dean's face and he knew in that moment that there was nothing that he could do to stop his brother giving up his life for this place, "My dad? Sammy? They'd be protected?" Dean asked, so much hope in his voice that Sam couldn't stand it.

"You bastard." Sam couldn't help speaking now, not at the tone in his brother's voice, "You knew exactly what effect this would have on my brother and you manipulated him into this. You picked him because you knew he'd be the only sucker who cared enough about a bunch of other people to let you fuck up his life."

"Sam." Dean hissed.

"Shut. Up." Sam repeated, "Well, isn't that why you chose Dean?"

Padraig shook his head, "When I said your brother was the only suitable person, I didn't mean in that way. The incantation is very specific. The person who takes on the protection spell must be a protector themselves, it has to be the kind of person who would give up their life for others. So in a way I did but not in the way you put it." Padraig looked a little disgusted at Sam.

"One more question." Sam said, holding up a hand to silence his brother, "This curse on you, the one affecting the whole village, who did it?"

The man gulped a little, the glistening of tears in his green eyes, and it was obviously taking some effort to work the words up from the recesses of his throat, "My little brother did."

A/N: Kudos to NovemberSN who saw the whole Dean guardian thing coming back in chapter 5 inspiring an equal part panic and joy reaction. Half 'yey the plot makes enough sense that someone figured it out' mixed with 'Oh boy, it's another five chapters 'til I get to that.'

Next update will be on St. Paddy's day as is appropriate as long as I remember to post before going out and getting slaughtered on Guinness.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one.**

Long moments of silence followed the pronouncement and Sam struggled to form together the words, "Your brother?" Sam asked, disbelief colouring his voice.

"My brother." Padraig said, his voice sounding his age in that moment, "My little brother."

"Why?" Sam asked in bewilderment.

Padraig spread and flexed his hands, eyes staring intently on the web of lines across them as if he could put off the moment forever if he just ignored it, "Because he died alone and I promised I would always be there for him. Because in the moment that he died, he hated me that much."

Sam felt like he'd been punched in the gut and a quick look at Dean revealed his brother had gone a few shades paler, a feat Sam would have previously considered impossible, "But how? Curses takes time and energy."

Padraig shook his head, "Not when your family hails from a long line of druids, it doesn't. It just takes one careless thought. In the days when druids were respected and valued members of the tribe, a druid would be trained so that careless thought never happened. These days…" Padraig held up his hand in a helpless gesture.

"So my brother has to give up his life because an untrained brat got pissy?" Sam snarled.

In an instant, Padraig's expression shifting from a sorrowful melancholy to absolute rage and he crossed the space between himself and the brothers in two strides seeming faster and longer than his old legs should be able manage, "How dare you? You think because you've peeked at the abyss that you have the right to judge my brother? Have you never made a mistake? Do you have any idea what it is like to live in fear every moment for day after day after day just waiting for someone to give the order that will likely mean your death?"

Sam saw Dean lurch up a little, his protective instincts overcoming common sense but Sam backed off from the old man and twisted his arm to push his brother back down, "Dean, rest." He ordered before turning back to the man, "You are right that I never experienced that but still, condemning an entire village because your brother left you alone? That'd just seems a little…"

The man backed down a little though anger still raged through his green eyes, "You'd judge a man you know all of three sentences about? A potted history you read in that stupid church display?"

"Hey now, Sammy usually takes at least four sentences." Dean said, his attempt at diffusing the situation lacking the usual humoured strength in his voice.

"Dean, not helping." Sam turned to scowl at his brother who just gave him a weak imitation of the 'What can you do?' grin.

To his surprise, when he turned back to the old man, he had his own grin across his face, only a slight trace of anger left deep in his eyes, "You two remind me of myself and Ciaran. He'd always get himself into trouble and then get annoyed at me for getting him out of him, like the boy could manage to move out his own front door without stepping in something."

"That's Sammy," Dean agreed, "There was this one time he…"

"I don't think we need to tell that story," Sam hastily interrupted, "Again. So I'll go track down the bones, exorcise li'l brother and you won't even need the protection spell. Simple?"

"Sam, you ain't thinking. This is a curse, not a haunting. Curses doesn't need any spiritual anchors. Just like that energiser bunny, they keep going and going and going and goi…"

"I get the idea, Dean," Sam glanced towards the old man, "You've had eighty years to think about this. Surely you must have some idea of how to break this curse or were you planning to lining up some poor suckers for the rest of eternity?"

"Sam!" Dean protested, "What have I told you about making me look like the reasonable one?" Dean pulled himself up against the head of the bed, pushing away Sam's hands before they could push him back down. "Why don't you step out and clear your head for a bit?"

"If you think I'm leaving you alone with him.."

"Yeah, 'cos I'm in so much danger from a guy who probably has trouble tying his own shoelaces in the morning. I may not be at my best right now but I'm not a cripple."

Sam glared at the old man, "If Dean has so much as one more scratch on him when I get back then I'll kick your wrinkled old ass back to Ireland." Sam turned the glare onto his brother, "And if you make that deal while I'm gone, I'll kick your ass to hell and back."

Sam turned on his heel and stormed out the door, just in time to hear Dean say, "You can try."

* * *

Dean watched his brother's retreated back and, with a sigh, let himself slouch back further against the back of his bed, closing his eyes against the wave of tiredness he felt, the wave he wouldn't let his brother see, "Is it always like this?" He asked Padraig. 

Padraig shook his head, "Once you are under the entirety of the protection, you won't feel tired anymore."

"So, what'cha do about getting food up to the bat cave?"

"I don't eat."

"Damn! You can eat, right? This isn't one of those Pirates of the Caribbean food getting all tasteless and falling through you, dealio?"

"You can eat and drink and, erm, enjoy relations. They are just not necessary, there are no… urges."

Dean looked horrified, "I'm gonna lose my sex drive?"

"Trust me, being stuck in a cave for three hundred and sixty one days of the year, there's only so much…"

"Yeah, get the idea." Dean halted whatever the old man could say, "So what do you do with your time?"

"I have a huge library."

"Not really a book person."

"Nor was I 'til I got stuck here. When it first happened, my wife used to visit all the time but as she got older, arthritis hit and she couldn't make it up here anymore. It didn't help that the rite means you don't age as fast as a normal human. I'm one hundred and two years old."

"You don't look a day over seventy." Dean quipped nervously.

"I won't lie to you now that your brother ain't here. I know all about keeping a brave face for the little brother. This is a shit deal. It's lonely as hell up here. The spell protects you from most side-effects of sleep deprivation but you'll damn well miss it. It's boring. You'll resent people for not visiting enough but when they do, you'll feel crowded and just want space."

"Why are you telling me all this? I thought you needed my help."

"I do but like I told your brother, you weren't some random pick. You get a few endowments from this, you'll find it easier to see people as they are. I know what you are like, probably better than you do. You can know all the problems with doing this and you'll still do it 'cos it means protecting people, protecting your brother, protecting your father."

"Number one ass-kicker, that's me." Dean gestured to his somewhat pathetic condition, "I'm sorry about Sam, he's not usually like this. He just gets all mother-hen sometimes, drives me nuts."

"Little brothers that think their older brothers are invincible and hate anyone that points out that they aren't, where have I heard that story?" Padraig tilted his head onto one side, a mimed tapping one finger on his nose, "Let's hope yours has a happier ending."

"Well, fortunately I don't have a brother with souped up druid mojo."

"No, but he has another kind of mojo." Padraig said and held up a hand to Dean's scowl, "Like I said, the protector gig gives you certain endowments. Don't worry, I'm not planning on telling anyone else. I just thought that keeping a secret like that probably wouldn't encourage you to trust me."

"There's one thing I don't get," Dean said, "Well, okay, there's a lot of things that I don't get but there's one thing in particular that I don't get. Sam's right about one thing. If you were really in need of a successor and you were fairly sure I was the right sort of person then why didn't you just ask me? What made you desperate enough to just start it?"

The old man reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a worn leather wallet, flipping it open and pulling out an equally worn photo, the edges tattered from long use, "This is me and Eleanor, back when we were young." He held the photo out to the younger man, "She died a month ago. I couldn't go to her funeral because I couldn't leave the shrine. I hadn't been able to see her since the autumnal equinox. I'm tired of doing this, so tired."

Dean looked over the photo, "She's pretty. Me and Sam saw her grave in the graveyard. It's been well-tended."

"I got lots of grandchildren," Padraig said, "And they all know to respect their elders. Plus my youngest's youngest wants to be a horticulturalist or whatever posh term that they call a gardener these days and prides herself on growing the most unusual things that she can look up in her gardening books."

"Horticulturalist, eh?" Dean said with a snort, "Sounds dirty."

Padraig shook his head with a snort of amusement, "Young people these days. Don't forget that's my grand-daughter you are talking about. If I wasn't so nervous about that hot-head little brother of yours, I might have to add a bruise of my own."

"Try it, grandpa." Dean challenged though he had a feeling if the old man had tried to punch him, he likely wouldn't be able to put up much of a defence. His cheek still stung from Sam's right hook.

"No thanks, beating on someone who can't fall unconscious is too cruel even for my twisted sense of humour."

Dean laughed, "Lucky for me I've probably been knocked unconscious enough times to make up for the lack of sleep in the rest of my life." Dean slid down a little more on the bed, "So what do we need to do to finish this?"

"I thought you promised your brother not to do anything."

Dean nodded, "Well, I'm not exactly about to hotfoot it up to that shrine right now and I doubt you are hiding super-strength in your new super-talents to carry me, just want to know what's involved."

"Nothing painful. A couple of muttered spells, a tiny amount of bloodshed to seal the protection spell and that's it. Nothing compared to what you've already been through."

"No, it isn't," Dean looked up to see the glowering tall form of his brother standing in the doorway and he unconsciously picked himself up, trying not to look as tired as he felt, "But there's still no fucking way you are doing this."

A/N: Hope you liked it. I'm off to drink Guinness. Happy St. Paddy's day to y'all. Please review if ya ain't too drunk on good ol' Guinness... or even if you are, nowt wrong wi' drunken reviews.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N: **To celebrate the fact it's snowing, I'm posting the next chapter. Yes, it's snowing… in England… In March! Fabulous! I'm a complete snow addict. During the writing on the early chapters of this, it was snowing as well, just after Xmas. I actually went outside and lay in the snow on my patio to figure out how Dean would feel. I concluded that Dean would feel bloody cold and that method writing was over-rated.

On to the story!

* * *

After Sam's statement, the arguments had deteriorated and eventually Padraig had had to leave in order to visit more people in the village before Winter Solstice was over and he needed to return to the shrine. He left Dean with directions up to the shrine which Dean safely tucked into a pocket before Sam could snatch them away and burn them. 

Sam hadn't stopped pacing since he got back from his walk except for every now and then when he would stop in front of Dean's bed, mutter, "You aren't doing this," and then continue in his mission to destroy any pattern left in the carpet. Needless to say, it was driving Dean nuts.

"Sam," Dean finally said, knowing he was only going to get himself dragged into the middle of the same argument that Sam and Padraig had hashed out endlessly before, "Look at it this way, Sammy. I take on this guardian, protection, whatever gig. Don't have to sleep any more, bonus. Dad'll be safe, you'll be safe and when you find the women of your non-freaky-death-vision dreams and raise a bunch of long-haired emo kids then they'll be safe too."

"And you'll be stuck in a cave only able to leave four times a year."

"So I'll need to do the place up a bit. Get some of that new-fangled electricity here. And no rule against visitors. Seriously handsome guy like me, I'll just put up posters and the girls will form a not so orderly queue."

"You'll be alone."

"You're gonna leave me eventually, Sammy, or so you keep telling me. This is just moving up the timetable and on my terms. At least this way I'm alone with benefits." There were shadows behind Dean's eyes as he spoke, some of the humour leeched out of his voice.

"If I promised not to leave, would you stay?" Sam turned to stand stock still, staring down at Dean with his puppy-dog eyes.

Dean let out an irritated huff and turned on his side away from Sam. Or at least he tried but Sam's hand gripped his shoulder and tugged him with far too much ease back around to face him, Sam's face so close to his own that he could smell Sam's breakfast. Dean weakly pushed his brother back, "You don't mean that, Sam. You think that's what I want? You hunting with me and hating me for every minute of it? Hell, I'd probably end up with a curse of my own."

"I would never do that." Sam crouched down, resting against his heels, "And I wouldn't hate it. Maybe I could even persuade you to give up the hunting gig once we've got the Demon. You could go to college."

Dean really didn't feel in the mood for this debate again. Sam seemed convinced that somewhere deep inside Dean, he hated the life as much as Sam did, that somehow Dean's protests against normality were just Dean's way of covering up for what he coveted but could never have. Sam never got that Dean hunted because he truly wanted to. Dean had tried imagining himself at college when Sam had first left for Stanford and the temptation to up sticks and go after Sam had got strongest but the only scenarios Dean could imagine involved him going insane from boredom and dashing off in the Impala in the middle of the night with Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell blasting from the speakers. And Dean didn't even like Meatloaf. "Sam, why can't you believe me when I tell you this is what I want to be doing?"

"If it's really want you want to be doing then why are you giving it up?" Sam stated like he'd scored some minor triumph.

"Because hunting means protecting people and we've got a whole bunch of people here that will get whacked by a curse if I don't."

"So we find a way to break the curse. You don't just passively lie down and accept it."

"Sammy, we've had this debate. I remember Dad making you stand in a corner and recite 'You can't break a curse' a hundred times."

"I only said it ninety nine."

"You rebel!"

"Look, Dean, I agree that curses are strong but this isn't righteous vengeance of a First Nations chieftain or the intricate voodoo of a third generation Haitian priestess. This is the dying anger of a scared little brother with too much power. He probably regrets it."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know what it's like to be a little brother, to say things you don't really mean and to hurt the one person who never deserved it."

Sammy looked so miserable that Dean relented, "Fine, little brother but if you don't find something soon then I'm taking on the protection gig and giving up on beauty sleep. I can't deal with this," He gestured down at himself, "much longer."

Sam looked like all his Christmases had come at once and he crooked an arm to give his brother a sort of hug without jostling him, "Thanks, Dean." Sam sprung up and pulled over the laptop, "I've been researching on curses and Bobby should be getting back to me with the translation soon."

"You brought Bobby into this?" Dean said in surprise, "Jeesh. Who else? Pastor Jim? Caleb? Jefferson?" Dean deliberately hardened his voice, "Dad?"

Sam rapidly shook his head, "Just Bobby. It was after you as much as passed out at the bar, I didn't know what else to do."

"And what did Bobby say?"

"He said we should get out of here as quickly as possible."

Dean choked back a laugh, "Wow. I think that's the first time I've ever heard of Bobby getting something wrong. I feel like my world is turning upside down."

"I should probably have rung him back," Sam admitted, "I kinda promised we would be there in a day, he's probably wondering where we got to."

"Nah, it's Bobby. You'll ring up and he'll be all 'Ah, so Dean stopped breathing? That can happen sometimes.' And then he'll rattle off his next suggestion. One time me and Dad tracked down this really weird critter, looked like the lovechild of Cthulhu and a werewolf. Anyway, I strode into Bobby's place, crowing about what we'd hunted and he didn't bat an eyelid, just looked straight at me and said 'Hmm, those things still around?' and cracked open a beer."

"Look, I'm gonna head out for a few hours and ring Bobby. The reception in this room is crappy. You'll be alright on your own?" Sam asked, ignoring the roll of eyes his brother gave him that he took as a yes and headed out the door.

* * *

Sam lied. He knew he should ring Bobby but on the other hand, he didn't want to admit to the older hunter just how badly he had fucked up the situation. Sam had a plan and so instead he began to jog up through the woods, following the directions that he had snagged from his brother's pocket during the 'hug'. 

The shrine wasn't as sparse as Sam's expectations had pictured, the decor showing the signs of about seventy years of inhabitation. It was still a cave but it was an opulent cave, thick rugs covering the floor and hangings on the wall taking away from the harsh stone of the wall. Padraig was sitting on a comfy chair facing the door and he looked up as soon as Sam entered, "I was wondering how long it would take you to get those directions away from your brother."

Sam shrugged, "I would've been here quicker but I needed to talk to him." Sam didn't bother waiting to be invited in. This was half his brother's home already. He just sat down in a chair facing Padraig's, "I've been doing some research on this."

"I guessed you might." Padraig said, looking so unsurprised that Sam briefly wondered whether he was any relation to Bobby, "One of my grand-nephews tried to get that internet thing set up here but I didn't get along with it. Probably doesn't help that I only got six hours of life on the laptop battery before I had to wait for someone to take it back down to the village and charge it."

Sam ignored the banter. As much as he knew if he had met this man in ordinary circumstances, he would have liked him, he couldn't ignore the fact that this man was responsible for his brother's current condition. "Dean is right that there is no way to break a curse but you can get it lifted. Someone of similar power in the same vein as the curse could do it, a powerful trained druid in this case, but it would take a long time for them to get here and I don't think my brother has that much time. The best solution is for the person that laid the curse to lift it."

Padraig arched a bushy white eyebrow, "I think it would take longer for you to fly to France and find my brother's bones than it would to get a druid here. I had to bury an empty coffin because they couldn't separate my brother's body from the hundreds that fell at that battlefield."

Sam nodded, "If you were ordinary and your brother was an ordinary ghost then that would be an issue but you aren't. Blood can call to blood, you can call your brother to you and persuade him to lift the curse."

Padraig chuckled, a sound born not of humour but of grief, "If I could do that, don't you think that I would have tried it before? My brother won't lift the curse. Can you imagine what it is like to live with knowing your brother's last act was to hate you?"

"I pulled the trigger four times once with a gun levelled at my brother. Fortunately for me it wasn't loaded." Sam said in a matter-of-fact tone though inside he was shaking, "And at the time I hated him so much that if I had been capable of forming a curse then Dean would have been toast. Do you think I hate him now?" Sam left out the whole crazy ghost Doctor aspect of the situation.

Padraig looked so shocked that Sam could have sworn he saw the back of the man's head through the wide eyes, "You really think my brother can lift the curse?"

"I believe so," Sam said with all the earnestness that he possessed. All his research had led him to that conclusion but he had never found any evidence of it actually working but then there hadn't been any situation equivalent to this.

"And if it doesn't work?" Padraig prompted.

"If it doesn't work then I'll give into my brother's wishes and you get to sleep." Sam said from between gritted teeth, "As if I have any fucking choice in the matter."

A/N: We're in the home straight now. 2 chapters and an epilogue to go!


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one.**

**A/N: **Chapter 13, unlucky for some, hopefully not for poor ol' Dean.

* * *

Getting Dean from their motel room up to the shrine was easier said than done. Sam knew that if their attempt to summon Ciaran failed then they would likely need to finish the protection soon or else Dean would fade away and the protection lost with him. As soon as Sam had walked into the room, Dean had taken one look up into his eyes and said, "You didn't go ring Bobby, did you? You went to see Padraig." 

Sam started to wonder whether Dean had been taking omniscience lessons from Bobby, "I had to. We've come up with a plan."

"Sam!" Dean growled, "Don't I get any say in this?"

"No, your decision making skills aren't up to par today."

"Yeah, well, you suck." Dean replied.

Sam glanced worriedly at his brother at the weak insult, "Whatever. Look, we need to head up to the shrine and you sure as hell can't walk. I think I can jury-rig a travois but it'll be slow-going and you shouldn't stay out in the cold." Sam thought aloud.

"I can so walk," Dean protested, pushing himself off the bed and promptly sprawling out on the floor, "That was just a test run." His muffled voice said. Sam looped an arm under his brother and tugged him somewhat ungently back onto the bed.

"You can't walk." Sam said as he shoved Dean over, "Not unless we want to get to the shrine just in time for you to collapse and die and for the curse to kill all of the people in this town."

"Well, when you put it like that," Dean said, "So are you going to enlighten me about the little plan you two geniuses, geniui cooked up?"

Sam set about shredding one of his shirts to try and make enough strips of cloth to tie and form the travois. He'd seen several long pieces of driftwood which would be apt for the job. "We'll summon Ciaran. I know ordinarily a spirit wouldn't be able to be summoned across an ocean but I'm hoping that the whole druid to druid thing will work."

Dean arched up his eyebrow almost to his hairline, "That's the plan? That's the worst plan I've ever heard and I've heard some of Jefferson's! Hoping for a druid to druid connection? Did you miss the giant salty ocean between here and France? You know what ghosts really don't like?"

"Fine, Dean." Sam snapped, putting the extra energy from the anger into tearing the shirt, "But what is the harm in trying? If it doesn't work then you can go take on the protection, live like a martyr in your rocky tower, just don't expect me to visit you."

Dean rocked backwards as if Sam had physically hit him and Sam found his eyes involuntarily drawn to the bruise that was turning to mottled pea green and purple on Dean's cheek, "You wouldn't?"

"I couldn't." Sam corrected, "I couldn't come here and watch you like this, pretending that you are okay with this, hating me every second for still being able to hunt. I'd ring but I wouldn't visit."

"Do you think Dad would?" Sam had to believe that it was just the tiredness making his brother into this shell and he gulped at the question. Asking Sam about their Dad was akin to stepping into a pool of piranhas and opening a vein.

Sam took a hasty breath and tried to consider the matter with the weight that his brother put on it, "I," The temptation to say no in the hopes that it would sway Dean from his current course was overwhelming and Sam had to choke the words back in his throat, "I think he would if he was passing."

"Do you think he'll forgive me?"

If Sam had thought the last question horrible, this one plunged down to the depths of hell. He bit his lip then worried at it, trying to put it off in the hope his brother would fade once more into the waking fevers. Dean's eyes remained fixed in lucidity on Sam's face until Sam had to answer, "I… I don't know, Dean."

Dean folded up at those words, turning his face away from his brother so Sam couldn't see the expression on his face though he could imagine it. Sam wrung his fingers, wishing he could say that he'd visit and their father would visit but knowing that it wasn't true. In Sam's mind, he could picture their father visiting the village frequently but never actually going up to the shrine to see his son, just gathering stories from the local villagers. "Let's go," Dean said, "Let's get this over with."

It didn't take Sam long to construct the travois, whittling the wood to smooth poles and binding them until he was sure it would hold steady against his brother's weight. It took too little argument to get Dean into the contraption and soon Sam was setting as swift a pace and he could towards the shrine. Dean was far too silent on the journey and Sam was tempted to start impersonating the Impala's engine just to provoke a reaction. Only a few bitten-back groans let Sam know for sure that his brother was still awake.

Sam wasn't sure anymore that even if Dean survived this, that his relationship with his brother would.

* * *

Sam had been right to worry about the cold and by the time he hauled the travois of the lip of the cave, Dean was pale from the cold and shivering even beneath the blankets Sam had tucked around him. Padraig looked up as the pair arrived and gestured towards his bed, "Put him there. I've banked up the fire so it'll be a bit warmer in here." 

Sam lifted his brother, noticing how much weight Dean seemed to have lost even in the short time they had been in this god forsaken town. Dean stirred and whimpered in his arms but the lucidity in his green eyes had vanished without a trace and he could have been staring at a stranger for all that it was worth. Sam glanced to Padraig, "Are you ready to start this?" He said, wasting none of his brother's remaining time.

Padraig reached into a chest and pulled out a pair of green candles, "I hope these'll do. I've never tried to do any spells since I laid the protection against this place in case they caused any harm to the protection."

Sam nodded, "They look like they'll do. Hell, I once had to try and stab a werewolf with a silver-plated jos stick holder." He chuckled a little at the memory, "Probably would've been easier to take the jos stick out first now I think about it." Sam took a look at the summoning spell that he had found online and written out though most of the words were foreign to him, he trusted in Padraig's ability to pronounce them. "What do you need me to do?"

"Look after your brother," Padraig said, an air of command in his voice that spoke well of how he'd managed back when he'd founded the village, "Be ready to snuff the candles if anything but my brother comes through. The spell has to dig deep to bring the spirit here through the earth rather than across the ocean and there are all sorts of things down there ready to snag the unwary or tag along for the ride." Padraig bent down on the floor equidistant between the two candles and brought out a box of matches. He struck one against the side, cupping his hand against the flame that flared to life and then lit the two candles. "Are you ready?"

Sam glanced at his brother to steel himself and nodded, "As I'll ever be." He hated to think what his father would say if he knew Sam had actually brought a spirit to the vicinity of himself and his brother.

Padraig settled himself to a cross-legged position in the centre line between the two candles. Sam could see his mouth moving as he checked over the memorised words. When the man began speaking, there was no trace of hesitance, just the strong rising and falling cadence of Gaelic sounding like a song. Sam could recognise the words from what he'd seen written but somehow in the man's Irish brogue, they took on an ethereal quality.

The room seemed to shimmer slightly and Sam made a brief swaying motion towards the candle, ready to snuff them, but there was no sense of evil or darkness in the room, nothing like the prickling horror Sam had felt at their old house in Lawrence. There was just a feeling of power and pressure, the air in the room pushing at him slightly more than it used to. Even Dean seemed to feel it as his body shifted more and more uneasily on the bed.

Sam gripped his brother's hand in his, trying to offer what reassurance he could. The words of the spell got louder and the light from the candles seemed to flicker and dance to a tune unheard. A couple of times it sputtered like a shadow just passed through and Sam reluctantly let go of his brother's hand once more and edged closer towards Padraig, ready to step into action if necessary.

He thought the incantation had only been going on for about ten or twenty minutes when the shimmering started to resolve itself into a shadowy shape, lines gradually resolving themselves into the outline of a body. Sam breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that this figure would be Padraig's estranged brother.

Before Sam's relief could settle too deep, the old man stopped the incantation with a sudden curse and turned panic-filled green eyes towards Sam, "Saints above! Summoning Ciaran, it's letting the curse through."

Even as Padraig spoke those words, the shape clarified to a young man in an army uniform with close-cut red hair and his brother's green eyes, "Hello brother," He said in an accent as strong as his sibling, "You've gotten old."

A/N: One more chapter and an epilogue to go! Reviews feed the hamsters living in my brain.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

**A/N: **This is it, the final proper chapter. There'll be an epilogue afterwards to tie loose ends. Hopefully you all like it. Whether you do or don't, please pop me a review and let me know! Every single one is appreciated and thanks to everyone that has reviewed and read so far.

* * *

"Ciaran," The old man didn't so much say the name as he breathed it out, his voice a broken whimper of its former strength, every year of his extended life counting its number in each syllable. 

"Brother." The brother's voice was warm and strong but there was a confused distance in his dark green eyes. Sam had to remind himself that it was a ghost standing in front of him instead of living man. He looked mortal, just a grey-washed hue to flesh and clothes betraying his supernatural origin, grey washed apart from his vibrant green eyes and bright hair, "Why have you woken me?"

Sam could see Padraig's old hands tremble and how he pushed them into bended knees in an attempt to still them, "The curse, little brother. You have to lift it," The trembles became a shudder that ran the length of the old man's frame, "It's getting through, I can't hold it off for long."

"Curse?" If Ciaran had looked confused before, it was nothing compared to the emotion that swept across his face now, "What curse?" Suddenly Ciaran's features froze to absolute stillness, his eyes turning distant as a forgotten memory of his old life burst into his mind, "The guns, they won't fall silent. They never fall silent. Even at night, I can hear them. In my dreams, they thunder still." He turned to his brother, seeing but not seeing him, "Where are you, brother? Why aren't you protecting me?"

"I wanted to." Padraig had sounded broken before but now he was shattered, a thousand tiny pieces of glittering crystal spread to the four winds, "I begged them to let me go with you. I begged them to let you stay behind. They wouldn't listen, they wouldn't let me go."

"You aren't here." The brother said in a forlorn and lonely tone before his verdant gaze snapped back to reality, "You weren't there. I can feel it still." The man raised hands to pristine jacket, feeling bullet holes that weren't there anymore, "I called for you. It grew so dark but you didn't come and I left instead." Ciaran stretched his hands out in front of him, observing the monochrome tinge and flexing long fingers, "I used to talk to you all the time in the trenches. Tell you about the day, who we'd lost, how hungry I felt, how scared I was. I hoped if I just talked long enough and frequent enough then you would be there."

Sam remembered his first weeks at Stanford. The back of everyone's head had looked like Dean and Sam kept picking up his pace after strangers in the hopes that one of them would be Dean: come to join him, come to bring him home. They never were, most of them weren't even close and as time had passed, Sam had started hating Dean for not being there, stewing in his own loneliness and resentment. It had taken a campus haunting gone badly wrong to remind him why his brother wouldn't and couldn't be there.

"Ciaran, you have to lift this curse." Padraig persisted, tears already brimming in his eyes, only waiting for that final push before they'd track down his face, "Please, the people living here now don't deserve your anger at me."

In that moment Ciaran looked far younger than the twenty eight years of life that he'd had when he died, "I don't know how." He admitted, "I never meant to place the curse. You weren't there and I was so cold."

Padraig tore his eyes away from watching his brother and turned to Sam, half lost in his own remembrance, "You said you knew. How do we do this?"

Sam bit his lower lip and worried at it, trying to find the words. He had deliberately avoided the subject of what would be necessary to break the curse. Padraig, in many ways, reminded Sam of his own big brother with many of the same insecurities. Finally Sam turned to Ciaran completely, pretending his older brother wasn't sat mere feet away, "You have to forgive him completely."

Sam found himself the subject of two identical green gazes: one set in a ghostly grey face and the other framed by its own marks of age. "I thought you said he would be able to lift this without difficulty?" Padraig reflected the same insecurity that Sam saw so often in Dean, the crazy belief that somehow he was irredeemable, his sins were greater than everyone else's.

Sam turned away from the brothers and looked back to where Dean rested on Padraig's bed, his skin a ghostly pale to rival Ciaran's apart from the dark freckles that stood out far too clear. His chest rose and fell gently but was the only sign that life lurked within the far too still body, "I was sure it would be." He replied, his words so soft that he thought perhaps he'd be the only person that could hear them.

"You looked so old, brother." Ciaran said, looking over his brother's seated frame before focusing down and away, a sure gesture of avoidance, "How did you get so old?"

"Years." Padraig replied, levering himself up to his feet even as his brother held out a wisp-formed hand to try and offer the support that it couldn't anymore, "Years and years of years. It's been almost eighty years, brother. My grandchildren are older than you look, your grandchildren too."

"Kairen," Ciaran said, a blissful look of peace coming across his face, "She lived a long time?" He asked.

"To seventy three," Padraig answered, "We buried her beneath the oak tree. She never wanted to be buried in a graveyard especially not next to your empty coffin. She never re-married though half the men in the town asked her. Your eldest, Connor, married a local woman when he was eighteen and they've seven children. Little Elsie married late but made up for it with five little ones of her own, all of them girls and all of them the spit of their mother apart from Callie who is the spit of her grandfather, poor thing."

"I want to forgive you, Paddy." Ciaran pled with his brother, his spectral form turning to pace the confines of the shrine, "I just don't know how to. I never had to forgive you for anything before."

Sam paused for a moment before deciding to interrupt, the memories of Stanford clear in his mind and then with a glance to his brother to bolster his thready strength, Sam spoke, "My brother left me once too. Or rather I went somewhere he wouldn't, that he couldn't follow. It took me a long time to forgive him too."

"How did you?" The ghost asked, hope emblazoned in his still strong voice.

"Because he's my brother," Sam said with a hapless shrug, half-turning so both Ciaran and Dean were in his line of sight, "Because I realise that Dean would have been there if he could without betraying who he was, Because I realised that it was time I stopped depending on him for everything, Because he's my brother and I could no more hate him for the rest of my life than I could stop the sun."

Sam saw the spark of understanding catch a fire in the ghost's green eyes and Ciaran turned to his brother, "Brother." He said the word with the profound understanding of what it means to be a brother, with the remembrance of the good and bad times. He reached out the grey-tinted hands to leathery cheeks that couldn't feel his touch and ran long fingers down tear tracks and wrinkle lines. "Paddy," He said, his voice summarising all the grief and joy and love and everything that he felt for his brother and compressing it in that instant into the single sentiment of brother, "I forgive you." He said and he looked like those three words had lifted a weight from his chest that he hadn't even realised was there.

Sam waited for some sign, a burst of lightning or a dramatic roll of thunder that would signal to the world that the curse was lifted. Instead there was just a relieved sigh from Padraig, "It's gone. Oh, thank the spirits, it's gone. Thank you, Ciaran."

Ciaran just smiled, his whole expression lightened by the burden he'd lifted, "Let me sleep again now, brother."

Padraig bent a little crooked and pinched thumb and forefinger at the wick of the first candle, snuffing it. "Good night, Sleep tight." He crab-walked to the second candle and repeated the same action, "Don't let the bed bugs bite."

Ciaran grinned from ear to ear and held up his hand in a wave to both his brother and Sam before he faded from sight once more.

Padraig took in a hitched breath, barely snatching back a sob as he stared at the place where his brother had stood moments before, "Goodbye Ciaran."

Sam felt back for breaking the moment but a look to Dean bolstered him, "My brother?" He prompted.

Padraig turned regret-filled eyes to where Dean lay and then walked slowly over, every second seeming to weigh more heavily on him than previous years had. "I will release him now." Padraig placed a hand on Dean's pale forehead and muttered in Gaelic, the words soft and musical to Sam's ears. Dean stirred briefly, tossing his head from side to side before sinking bonelessly back into the pillows.

Sam scuttled to Dean's side, almost pushing the old man over in his haste as he pressed frantic fingers to his brother's neck, only breathing again once he felt the steady beat of the pulse against trembling fingers.

"He's just sleeping." Padraig said with a lengthy yawn, "And I think I will too." Padraig walked over to the wall and sank down against it, "But, unlike your brother, I don't think I will be waking up." Padraig's eyes slid closed and Sam heard his voice still clear, "Thank you, Sam Winchester. Take care of your brother." Padraig slumped as his last breath left him, a look of relieved peace on his old face.

"Thank you, Padraig Finnegan." Sam whispered in response to the old man's frame though he didn't stir from his spot next to his brother, eyes fixed on the repeating rise and fall of his chest. When he was sure that Dean was really just sleeping and nothing more sinister, he clambered onto the bed, ignoring Dean's murmured sleeping protests as he stretched his own lanky form alongside his brother's, draping his arm across his brother's chest in a gesture that Dean would never allow if he was conscious. Finally he let himself sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimers and notes in chapter one**

"Come on, Sammy. Time's a'wasting." Dean called cheerfully over to his brother before heading out of the motel door.

Sam found himself abruptly missing the forty eight hours when all Dean had done was sleep, wake up, eat and go straight back to sleep. Sam was sure that Dean would sleep right through Padraig's funeral but Dean had come back to full awareness an hour beforehand.

After the Irish-style wake, Dean had been unconscious again but this time as a result of passing out due to all the drinking. Sam had always been impressed by his brother's capacity for alcohol but it held a poor candle to a whole town with Irish ancestry, especially when the whole town wanted to buy a drink for the boys that'd let Poor Paddy sleep.

As soon as Dean recovered from the hangover he'd started climbing the walls. Sam had tried to persuade him to rest and let his worn body recover, had even tried distracting him with packets of peanut M&Ms but had ended up giving in after extracting a promise from his brother to let Sam drive while Dean would sleep in the passenger seat.

Of course, that had been one of the few conversations that the brothers had had since Padraig's death and Dean's recovery. Dean claimed that his memory of the events after they arrived in the town was a little hazy but Sam didn't believe him for a second. Dean could hide many things but Sam could see the hurt glimmer that resided in the back of his brother's eyes.

Sam had tried to bring up the topic multiple times but each time been put off by a wave of Dean's hand and a muttered 'I'm tired.' Sam still felt too guilty over the events and some of the things he had said to his brother to push so they both continued to ignore the giant pink elephant shitting on the carpet.

Sam saw the window of opportunity now as he glanced out the door to where the Impala was parked. The Impala had always been home in a way nowhere else could be especially since Dean had driven to get Sam from Stanford. It was semi-neutral territory even if Sam always suspected the Impala purred that bit more content when his brother drove. It was also an enclosed space and Sam was sure there was only so much that his brother would feign sleep.

When Sam walked out to the car, Dean was sitting there in the driver's seat, caressing the steering wheel with still slightly shaky hands. Sam cleared his throat, "I'd ask if I should leave you two alone except you appear to be sitting in my seat."

"Come on, Sammy. I'm fine to drive." Dean croaked but Sam could see his chest convulse as he suppressed another coughing fit.

"Guess I need to go back to the motel and book us in for another night." Sam said, turning to walk back towards the motel office and hoping his brother didn't call his bluff. The motel owner had told the boys they could stay for free as long and as often as they liked during Paddy's wake and the next morning, Sam had been awoken by a knock at the door and the motel owner returning all the money they'd paid so far along with a bit extra.

Fortunately Sam only took one step before he heard the click of the driver's side door opening and his brother swinging himself out of the car. Sam turned, not missing the fact that Dean was leaning against the frame, one hand gripped tight to keep his balance. At Sam's look, Dean just shrugged and said, "I want to get out of here."

"Fine," Sam returned to the car, slouching himself down into the driver's seat and slinging his duffel into the back. A few moments later, Dean levered himself into the passenger seat, stretching out his legs and reaching for the box of cassettes. "Driver picks the music." Sam reminded him.

"Just checking you didn't bring Britney Spears in here." Dean said, clanging each cassette over as he checked the labels before easing himself back with a sigh and a pat to the car's dashboard, "You are safe, baby."

Sam twisted the key in the ignition, watching Dean grin as the Impala purred into life. Sam reached across his brother and grabbed the cassette he was looking for, sticking it into the tape drive and listening to the opening notes of Pink Floyd. He twisted down the volume, refusing to let his brother drown out any attempt at conversation this time. A quick glance behind him and the car peeled out of the motel car park. Sam only gave a moment before he glanced sidelong to his brother, "So, are we going to talk now?"

"What's there to talk about?" Dean put on an air of genuine confusion but Sam knew his brother well enough now to see through it.

"About what happened, about some of the things I said." Sam refused to give in, "When I said I wouldn't visit.."

"You meant it." Dean cut Sam off, a cold note in his voice, "Please don't pretend otherwise now."

"Yeah, I meant it." Sam agreed, never planning to say otherwise, "But not 'cos I wanted to leave you or was looking for a way out."

"Fine, Sammy. Whatever. You do what you do, same as always. Can we just get on to the next gig?" Dean twisted in his seat to watch the town recede in the back window.

Sam held his breath as they passed the town sign, keeping a close eye on his brother to make sure that the protection spell really was lifted, "I was thinking we could head over to Bobby's. He's probably a bit annoyed with me for not calling and we could use the downtime."

Sam knew his brother was going to shake his head even before the first muscle movement, "Nah. We can ring Bobby, let him know we're okay. Hell, he probably already knows. I want a job." Sam could hear the unspoken 'I need a job'. Dean needed to go kick the ass of something evil and prove that he is the invincible big brother once again.

"So you want to continue on to that potential harpy then?" Sam asked, watching the road for a moment instead of his brother's face.

"Another hunter has probably bagged them by now." Dean sulked, "But we could head up there anyway. See if there is anything else suitable."

"I imagine you'd rather steer away from hunting anything else from Celtic mythology for a while." Sam teased though his voice begged Dean 'Forgive me'.

Dean shot his brother an incredulous look, the biggest grin spreading across his face, "You kidding? I still want to bag me a leprechaun!" With that, Dean slid on his sunglasses and leant his head back against the seat, humming contently to himself.

"Hey Sam," Dean said, "Why do the Irish call their currency the punt?"

Sam glanced over to his brother at the odd question, "They don't anymore, it's the euro. As for why, I'm not sure, why do we call ours the dollar? Why does any currency have the name it does?" Sam has taken a class in linguistic history at Stanford, figuring it might be nice to figure out why some of the monster they'd fought had the names they did but it had taught by a lecturer who'd obviously wanted an easy ride and consisted mostly of the origin of pop culture phrases and the rare olde English term.

Dean rolled his eyes, "Because it rhymes with bank manager."

Sam took a moment to puzzle that one out before clarity hit and he just groaned.

"Why do the Irish always count their money twice?" Dean said before Sam had a chance to protest.

"Dean!" Sam grumbled.

"To be sure, to be sure." Dean said, even putting on a terrible Irish accent.

Sam groaned again, reaching a hand up to crank up the music a little.

For the first time that Sam ever noticed, Dean reached over to turn the music down, "Anyway, An Englishman, A Scotsman and an Irishman are stranded on a desert island and they find this bottle..." The rest of the journey continued like that until Dean drifts off to sleep to the sound of the Impala's engine and Sam smiles to himself. Only his brother could say 'I forgive you' with the world's worst collection of Irish jokes.

* * *

A/N: And it's over. Thanks for everyone still around for the long ride. It was my first attempt at a long fanfiction and I think it worked fairly well though I've spotted several pacing issues and things I'll need to work on for the next LongFic. (If a short fic is a OneShot, does that make a long fic a LongShot?) 

Top of the list is getting myself a beta reader. Any advice of how to snag one of those wily things would be much appreciated. Mainly looking for stuff like plot, pacing and stealth BritGlish sneaking in rather than spelling and grammar which I can (mostly) manage (even if Word's squiggly green lines disagree with me).

Thank you to every single one of you for reading and to Kripke for creating the playground and, of course, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki for playing characters that make you want to write about them. Oh, and Jim Beaver, 'nuff said.

And it's goodnight from me.


End file.
